A Broken Friendship
by Millenium Ring
Summary: Sequel to "The Scorpion's and The Flower's Freedom". Sasori and Deidara have their mission set. Sakura has her own. Will a change of heart be enough to keep the budding relationship that she has with the puppet master? Sasori x Sakura
1. Joy

_**DISCLAIMER:**__** egads, I do not own 'Naruto' or**_ _**anything associated with the anime and manga. I am merely writing this for my adoring readers and my own mind, because Sasori needed kindness darn it!**_

_**Authoress' Note: Here it is! The sequel to "The Scorpion's and The Flower's Freedom"! Honestly, if you have not read that, then I strongly suggest that you turn back and read it before you even glance at this chapter. Otherwise you'll be mortally confuddled.**_

_**I do hope this story will live up to the expectations of you all and I hope that you will greet it with the same warmth you greeted it's predecessor. Oh, don't let the title worry you...I promise this will not make you utterly depressed for eternity!**_

* * *

**A Broken Friendship**

**Chapter One: Joy**

Sakura Haruno walked along the streets humming a happy little tune in her head. She wasn't sure what she was humming to, but it made her face smile all the same. There was a good feeling inside her, as though the day would be perfect for some reason. The young ninja had this wonderful feeling of excitement, as though something simply amazing was just around the corner. Sakura just hoped that it wouldn't be closely followed with something bad.

Nothing new had happened in the Leaf village as of late and not once had Sakura had a visit from her new friend, Sasori. He hadn't come to see her since that one time a couple of weeks ago, where he had acted very strangely and even…faintly touched her face before he abruptly left with a cryptic message and warning for her not to be around while he was on his mission. She still had no clue what he meant, but for some reason Sakura trusted the red-haired puppet master more than she knew that she should do.

Wait! It had been about two weeks? That meant only one thing…Naruto would be back any day now! With a huge grin plastered on her face, Sakura started to skip happily down the bustling streets, until a trio of short people collided with her as she rounded a corner. She fell clumsily to the dirt floor just as the three others did the same.

Wincing, Sakura carefully picked herself up off her behind and then looked at the ones who had knocked into her so carelessly. Sprawled on the floor in a haphazard way were Konohamaru and his friends, all three of them moaning about evil cats and stupid, fat, lazy grown ups.

"What were you three doing that made you run into me, huh?" Sakura's tone wasn't reprimanding, not matter how much she tried to make it sound that way. There was no possible way that she could be angry with the kids; they were probably doing some simple mission and weren't looking where they were going because they had been so focused.

Konohamaru looked up at the older girl, a light blush on his cheeks from the sheer embarrassment over what had happened, "Er…sorry about that Sakura. We were trying to catch a stupid cat and it kept getting away from us. I almost had it too…now where did it go?"

His dark eyes searched intently among the different street stalls and people, but he couldn't see the pesky critter. His friends also came up with no results and the trio sighed in dismay. No doubt that would be a failed mission for them.

Sakura, noticing their misery, smiled kindly at the younger kids, "Don't worry, I'm sure you'll get the cat soon."

Konohamaru grinned at the Hokage's apprentice, "You really think so?"

"Uh huh, I bet the little guy's hiding somewhere close by. Don't give up!"

The three little ninja nodded, saluted Sakura – which she found strange – and then they darted off in a random direction to begin their search once again.

"I remember doing that kind of mission…" A wistful look passed over the girl's face, "It seems like so long ago that we were a team…" At once, Sakura's mood darkened and she could no longer muster up the energy to smile or be joyous. Not now that she had thought about the past – about Sasuke. "Even though I don't think of him that way anymore, I still care about him. I still worry…"

The now depressed teenager trudged through a random street, not really paying any notice of where her feet were taking her. So it was a surprise when she passed by a lamp post and a voice called down to her – a familiar, happy, often annoying voice. Her head shot up and Sakura searched the sky for the sound that she had waited to hear for such a long time now. All that her eyes saw was a shadowed figure silhouetted against the bright sunlit sky.

"Who..?" she muttered the question quietly to herself.

"SAKURA!" the voice called happily once again and this time the person jumped down from the pole and was right in front of her face.

The young girl had no doubt who this was, "Naruto!" She almost hugged him, but stopped herself at the last moment. There was no point in giving him a big head, making him think that she had missed him a lot. As if she had!

"It's good to see you again, Sakura." He was grinning at Sakura and the pink-haired girl found herself returning the grin with a smile of her own.

"You too, Naruto." She blinked and looked at how much the blonde had changed in the last couple of years or so. "You look…different." Indeed he was, for his height had vastly improved from the small, slightly plump boy of twelve that Sakura remembered. His hair had grown a little longer too, but it still only reached his shoulders at the back. His face wasn't as round as it used to be. He looked more mature than Sakura would have ever thought possible for him to be. He even had a change of clothes. They were still orange, but there was black on the clothing as well. All in all, Sakura found herself amazed and impressed with the new looking Naruto.

"Yeah, I know. I had to get some new clothes because my old ones were ruined after training so much. You haven't changed at all though Sakura!" His grin never left his face, even as Sakura twitched at his lack of attention. She had most definitely changed from nearly three years ago; trust Naruto to not notice a difference!

A booming and very irritating voice called from above the pair, grabbing Sakura's attention momentarily, "Now, now Naruto, is that any way to compliment such a beautiful little flower?" The Legendary Toad Sannin himself dropped down from the sky, much like Naruto had before, and landed easily enough on the ground behind Naruto. Jiraiya, of course, hadn't changed one bit since the last time Sakura had seen him. His hair was still bizarrely white in colour and he was still wearing the exact same clothes and sandals that made annoying tapping sounds as he walked. On top of that, he was still just as lecherous as ever.

"Hey, don't say that about Sakura you pervy sage!"

"I was merely saying that the young blossom had finally become a blooming flower. Surely you have noticed Naruto?"

The twitch didn't fade, and increased a greatly, as Sakura listened to the pair talk about whether or not she was pretty. It was bad enough that Naruto didn't notice, but to have Jiraiya notice was just terrible! It was hardly a compliment or a good thing when he paid attention to a woman. Wanting to stop the current conversation before it turned very embarrassing for her, Sakura plastered on a large smile, reigned in the twitches to a bare minimum and cleared her throat, "So, Naruto…have you learnt any new jutsu while you've been training?"

With the new topic – one that the blonde boy loved immensely – Naruto gave his undivided attention to Sakura and paid no mind to Jiraiya's ranting.

* * *

The sun beat down fiercely on the dark clothed figures as they ploughed through the sand, a fixed destination in their minds. One was slightly taller than the other and was wearing a strange straw hat with wind chimes on it. The other had no hat and was red-haired. He was also grumbling about stupid sandstorms, for they were both caught in a particularly nasty one. It was just a lucky thing that the red-haired one knew the exact way to the Sand village, otherwise the duo would have gotten horribly lost.

The one with the hat turned to his partner, "Say, Sasori, how much further IS this village, yeah? My feet feel like they've been walking all over the country, yeah."

Sasori fixed his companion with a cold stare, "Stop complaining Deidara. We'll be there before nightfall."

Deidara huffed and rolled his eyes skyward in a child-like manner, not at all pleased with what his comrade had told him. He wanted to get to the village now so he could get his stupid mission over with and finally prove his worth to the other Akatsuki members. His partner, Sasori, had already proven his worth some months before, so Deidara wanted to show what he could do on his own. He really, really wanted to capture his very own demon container by himself!

While Deidara's thoughts were entirely focused on the approaching task, Sasori's were a large jumble. Lately he had begun to question…things. Things he did, or things he was told to do. Anything that he knew was wrong he had started to see as…bad. He used to revel in doing bad things and causing fear and pain. Now however…the fun was slowly vanishing in every one of those activities and he was starting to regret doing cruel things to others, especially when the person who suffered happened to be a girl or someone truly vulnerable and innocent. Their faces all resembled…her face. Sakura's smiling, innocent, pure face.

Sometimes he would imagine how she would take some of the things he did, and he always felt some kind of shame or revulsion towards himself. Sasori was truly ruined as far as his career in the Akatsuki was concerned; he couldn't very well remain alongside an organisation that enjoyed harming others and wanted to destroy all the great ninja nations – that would put Sakura in danger.

He wondered if she still thought of him. He hadn't seen her in about two weeks since his brief visit to her village, but there were forces at work that prevented the puppet master from seeing the young girl. One of them was the inevitable task of accompanying his bomb-happy partner to retrieve the one-tailed demon in the Sand village. The other force was the typical peril of entering the Leaf village while they now knew to keep their eyes peeled for anyone wearing coats like his. Apparently word had spread about what the Akatsuki wore, so now they couldn't sneak around amongst the great ninja nations without drawing unwanted attention to each other.

Sasori hoped that Sakura had not learnt of what the cloaks meant; he didn't want to think that she would ever hate him. He would never admit this to anyone, but he truly liked the girl. She intrigued him and she trusted him almost completely. He knew that she was very naive for doing so, but he was thankful to have a person care about his own well-being once more.

All these thoughts conflicted with and confused the red-haired puppet master, who was utterly sick of not knowing just how he should act anymore. He wanted to remove the reason for his confusion, but of course he knew that he couldn't do that. After all, the reason was a very pretty pink-haired girl from the Leaf village…wait, did he just think she was pretty??

Sasori shook his head and closed his eyes in dismay.

He was afraid of getting to the stage of crazy infatuation. He'd heard of such things happening to the greatest of men, but he never believed he would fall into that trap. Apparently, he was starting to do just that. He knew he liked her, but he didn't honestly expect to start liking how she looked as well! It was absurd, but it also made some illogical sense. He couldn't remember the last time he had ever appreciated another human being for just existing, except perhaps Deidara, so it made some strange sense that he would start to notice Sakura for something more than just a friend.

He'd never start to fall in love with her though!

Clearly, his partner had begun to notice his odd mood changes, for he kept glancing at the red-head with worried eyes. Yet, Deidara didn't say anything to him, for fear of suffering torture most painful.

The evening sun was slowly drifting across the sky, marking the passage between day and night, but the sand storm had not let up one bit. If anything, Deidara would bet that it had gotten WORSE since they'd been travelling. He wouldn't put it past the weather to do such a thing to him and his long blonde hair. Deidara personally hated the sand, whereas he wasn't sure whether Sasori cared about the sand at all. He figured it couldn't be very good for the puppets or his partner's body; all those joints getting sand clogged in them…

"We're nearly there Deidara. It's just over this hill. Then you can do some damage."

The grin spreading across the blonde's face was equal to that of a child at Christmas time, when they had gotten the one thing that they had always wanted. For Deidara, blowing up a village full of people was just like the best present in the world.

Sasori wasn't as enthusiastic as his partner; he was rather reluctant to actually harm the one place that had helped him in looking after Sakura. Even if this was his old home, which was a good enough reason to destroy it, Sakura knew people there. And Sakura upset was the very last thing he ever wanted.

His velvet smooth voice whispered amongst the chaos of the storm one word, "Sakura…"


	2. Sorrow

_**Authoress' Note:**__** I apologise for being a day late with the chapter. I was kinda busy trying to educate a friend in some films that she had never heard of before and we lost of track of time and it got to nearly 11pm at night! So, yeah...things were weird today too. I went to a manga convention, something I have NEVER done before and I was sooo freaked by the small space that nearly 100 people were squeezed into. It was awful! And smelly! You know...'cause of all the sweat and stuff... Anywho, here's the chapter. Do enjoy and please review. Thank you kindly to everyone who has read the first chapter, reviewed it and even favourited and alerted it. You make me soooooo happy! I hope I don't actually disappoint people and I promise that this story won't have the nasty death that so many disliked.**_

_**Disclaimer:**_** Honestly, I only own myself and my lovely straight hair. Oh and the small bits of merchandise that I get every now and then. If I owned 'Naruto' and all things related to the manga and anime, I'd be soooo rich that I would make the Shippuuden series into an english version already. As it is, I'm not the owner and I don't make profit from something entirely fan-based.**

* * *

**A Broken Friendship**

**Chapter Two: Sorrow**

After learning that Naruto hadn't really changed at all since she had last seen him, Sakura had proceeded to follow the pair of fools to Tsunade's office. It had only been about a half an hour ago, but Sakura could still recall the feeling of annoyance at Naruto's stupidity as if it happened only a moment ago.

Sakura had asked him what new jutsu he had learnt, at which point he then decided to go on and on about his perfected version of the 'Sexy Jutsu'. So, being the decent human being that she was, Sakura punched the blonde square in the jaw, which promptly made a crater in the dirt floor as well.

Since then, the pink-haired ninja had refused to make anymore conversation with Naruto or Jiraiya – though the latter was never likely to receive such an honour anyway. The silent walk to the Hokage's building was almost ominous – Lady Tsunade had that effect on some people after all.

The three ninja entered the office after knocking on the wooden door and hearing their leader's voice grant them entry. When Tsunade's chocolate coloured eyes saw her old friend and the young blonde boy standing before her, she promptly dropped the brush she had in her hand and looked almost utterly surprised to see them both. Her shock turned to relief soon enough, and she stood up to properly greet them, "Jiraiya, Naruto, welcome back. I trust your training went successfully?" Though her question was meant for Naruto, she looked at Jiraiya to answer her.

The white-haired man did so, with his huge grin plastered on his face, "Naruto here is now nearly ten times as strong as he used to be!" He patted Naruto's back hard after he said those words, his grin widening as well.

Throughout the exchange Sakura remained standing by the door, not quite sure if she should even speak for the time being. Jiraiya began talking rapidly about all the great things the boy had learnt and Tsunade appeared to be pleased by this. Deciding that she didn't need to give any input – since she knew next to nothing herself – Sakura tuned out the grown ups' conversation and instead focused on other things, such as when she would be seeing Sasori again.

She hoped that he would stop by the village sometime soon; Sakura was worried about him. His parting words now left a sinking feeling in her chest, as though he was going to be in impending danger sometime in the near future. Her eyes glazed over as she remembered the days they had spent in that forest, trying to escape. Sakura hadn't known fear for nearly 3 years, until she had been captured by those evil ninja. Happiness and relief were the only things she had felt when Sasori had helped her to escape. No matter what, she didn't think that she could ever hate Sasori and she only wished for him to be safe.

It was as Sakura was lost in thought that a question was fired in her direction from the Hokage herself. The pink-haired ninja blinked and asked if her mentor would repeat her question again.

Tsunade's eyes narrowed slightly as she scrutinised her apprentice, "I just asked you if it would be a good time to test your abilities in a simple training exercise? It would be the perfect opportunity to see how well you both have improved and to see if you can still function as a team."

Sakura nodded once and then she and Naruto waited until their opponent appeared. The Hokage had mentioned that they would be working together to beat someone, but for the time being neither of them knew who this someone would be. Then the open window to Sakura's left caught her attention, where Kakashi Hatake was now standing with his typical laid-back expression on his face.

"I will be your opponent." Was all that he said and both young ninja gaped slightly at the news. They couldn't very well beat Kakashi! He was their teacher from before and they knew full well what he was capable of if he tried.

Still, it wasn't as though they could honestly take back their agreement anymore; they had already expressed that they would participate without even knowing who they would be up against.

* * *

The night was almost upon the dark-clothed duo as they approached the large wall that acted as a gate for the Sand village. Already, all the ninja who were on guard had been killed, since one of Sasori's own spies had been placed in the village years ago and had dealt the killing blows on every last ninja on the wall.

Sasori didn't really register the man that was knelt before him in the sand; his own mind was still puzzling over the matter of Sakura to really care about anyone else. Instead he simply gave Deidara a look and then moved to one side and waited for the blonde to create another one of his clay birds.

With great skill, Deidara moulded a miniature bird from clay using only one of his hands, and then he tossed it onto the sand in front of his feet. He made a simple hand sign with one hand and the bird grew in size so that a person would be able to ride on its back with ease. Before the blonde could set off and collect the one-tail though, Sasori stopped him with his voice, "Don't take too long Deidara and don't do anything unnecessary. Our mission is only to collect the container, not to draw too much unwanted attention to ourselves. Don't forget that." The dark look in the red-head's eyes was enough of a warning for Deidara to heed without being told twice.

The clay bird rose gracefully into the air, wings flapping as it gained altitude, and then took off with a speed that many would envy towards the sleeping village ahead.

Sasori remained standing in the large crevice that acted as a path between the large wall-like structures, his eyes not actually focused on anything around him. He was deep in thought, hoping that the stupid mission would be over quickly and wanting nothing more than to see Sakura's happy smile again.

* * *

The training mission was simple enough that Sakura thought she could succeed if she actually managed to land one single punch on Kakashi. All she and Naruto needed to do was take the two bells from his waist, only this time the Jonin was not holding back on them. He hadn't been hit once by any of Sakura's attacks and he had even evaded everything that Naruto had done to him.

It reminded the pink-haired girl of the time when they had all attempted this mission before, back when Sasuke was still with them. Things were different now and Sakura was surprised to find that the familiar ache in her heart when his name was brought up didn't show up once. In her own mind she knew it was because she had stopped caring so much about Sasuke now, and Sasori had started to fill in that void instead.

In her wondering thoughts, Sakura barely registered when she completely missed hitting the copy ninja and instead managed to topple a tree in half. With a curse at the irritating silver-haired ninja, Sakura stood back and moved to hide behind a tree. At the poor rate that both she and Naruto were going, they'd never be able to take the bells from the irritating, book-obsessed Kakashi Hatake before the sun rose. At sunrise, their time would expire and they would have failed at the simple task.

Naruto joined her behind the large tree, clutching at his face where he had been hit only a moment before, "Sakura, how are we going to get those bells? It's impossible!"

"Relax Naruto, we just need to think of something that we can use as a weakness. He has to have one. Think…"

They both assumed thinking positions and tried to recall anything that made their former team leader become distracted. Sakura couldn't think of anything at all, but Naruto's expression brightened and he grinned impishly at his pink-haired friend, "The book!"

Sakura looked confusedly at Naruto, wondering what he could be talking about, "What book?"

"You know…that book I gave to Kakashi before we started the training. You were there when I he got it, don't you remember?"

Come to think of it, Sakura couldn't very well remember much that happened while they were all standing in the Hokage's office. Her mind only took in a few small things whenever she was addressed, but nothing else. She was miles away, thinking of Sasori and what he could be doing. She had a sinking feeling he was in danger throughout the day, ever since she had met up with Naruto.

So, instead of telling her friend that she had no idea what he was talking about, she let him come up with the plan, "Here's what we're going to do Sakura. First, I'll start to reveal the ending to the book, while you sneak up and take the bells from him." He seemed so sure that it would work; Sakura could only agree with him and try to make the plan succeed.

* * *

Morning had almost begun to shed its first few rays when Deidara came back with their target: the demon container for the one-tail, Gaara. He was unconscious and held firmly in the curled up tail of Deidara's clay bird. Parts of the boy's pale face were cracked from where his sand defence had broken. Deidara was grinning at his accomplishment, even though he had now lost his left arm from the battle.

Sasori hadn't paid any attention to what had happened in the Sand village while Deidara was there; he was too caught up in his thoughts. Now, as he looked at the injury Deidara had sustained, he wondered what he had missed. Probably something really important. In fact, the puppet master didn't doubt that his partner had more than likely tried to destroy the entire village while he was there. It would explain why he had gained such a terrible injury while still being able to grin with glee. Deidara always became happy or proud when he used his best tricks or had to go all out against someone.

Sasori glanced quickly at the village to make sure the blonde hadn't succeeded in obliterating the place, and was somewhat relieved when it all appeared to be normal, except for the ninja who were running towards them from far off in the distance. They probably wanted to rescue their beloved Kazekage, but they wouldn't even get past their own gates. Sasori had ensured that when he put down the explosive tags…wait! He hadn't put the tags down! He'd been too preoccupied with his thoughts to even remember the plan they had worked out.

Frowning, Sasori turned and began to walk swiftly back through the pathway in the wall, not even glancing at his spy or Deidara, "We need to move now Deidara, or we'll have more problems to deal with."

"Oh come on Sasori! It's just a few stupid Sand ninja, yeah!"

"No Deidara. We are going back now or else the boy will wake up."

The blonde sighed and flew his bird over the wall, his joy slightly lessened by the anger of his partner.

* * *

The plan worked perfectly. While Naruto had been reciting the ending of the newest Icha Icha book that Kakashi had been given, but had not read entirely yet, Sakura grabbed the bells. Since the copy ninja didn't want to hear what the ending was like, he had used both hands to completely block his ears. On top of that, he had also closed his eyes so he couldn't lip read from Naruto either. It hadn't taken much to snatch the two bells from the poor Jonin's belt, but they both still felt proud with their accomplishment.

"Alright Sakura, we did it!" Naruto's contagious grin had lit up the boy's face, and Sakura soon found herself returning the expression.

Sakura felt proud. Both she and Naruto had proven that they could successfully hold their own against a Jonin, with not too much effort or strain on their part. On top of that, she'd been able to show off her new strength and chakra control to her former teacher and to Naruto too. Neither of them would ever dare call her weak now.

It was with a happy feeling in her chest that Sakura went to sleep for the few remaining hours of the night, but when the sun rose and showed a bright morning, the sinking feeling had returned once again. Add to that the urgent knocking on her door, and Sakura Haruno was well and truly panicking. She hastily dressed into something other than her pyjamas and then swung open the door, only to be greeted by an ANBU with a message for her. The young medic always did find them creepy, with their masks hiding their identities from the world.

"Miss Haruno, the Lady Hokage requests your presence in her office immediately."

With a quick nod, he was gone and Sakura sighed in some sort of relief that she no longer had to stare at someone with no real face. She turned back to her room and quickly started to add her ninja tools and ouch to her outfit, before she tied her head band on and left the room, locking the door securely with her key afterwards. She no longer lived with her parents, because she had wanted a small apartment of her own that was slightly closer to the hospital in case of emergencies. Her parents had been reluctant at first, but had ultimately agreed saying that their daughter was already mature enough to survive on ninja missions; she could last on her own in a new home too.

The young ninja took the stairs two at a time as she dashed to get out of the building and onto the streets. Once there, she took to the rooftops to avoid the early rising villagers and made her way quickly to the Hokage's manor. It wouldn't do to delay Tsunade after all; her temper could be matched with her fists easily.

She stopped at the window that Kakashi had used only the other day and knocked once to let her mentor know that she was there. The window slid open and Shizune, Tsunade's often paranoid assistant, ushered her inside with a shaky hand. That clearly wasn't a good sign; if Shizune was shaking already something bad must have happened.

The other occupants of the room were: Kakashi, who stood leaning against the wall next to the door; Naruto, who was standing rigidly in front of the Hokage's desk; Jiraiya who was leaning on the opposite wall to the window Sakura had just entered by; and of course Tsunade herself, who looked as white as a sheet.

"Right, now that everyone is here I can tell you your new mission, Team Kakashi." Even when she spoke, Sakura could hear her fear and sense how worried her teacher was.

The pink-haired girl wondered just what the new mission could be about that had Tsunade so worried. She found out soon enough.

"I received a message early this morning, informing me that the Kazekage, Gaara, had been captured by the Akatsuki." At once Naruto paled to match the Hokage's pale skin and Sakura even shook a little at this news. "They request immediate aid from us, so I am sending Team Kakashi to offer whatever assistance they need. Team Gai will come to back you up once they return from their mission, so don't attempt to engage the enemy until you have your back-up. You are to leave immediately. Dismissed." When nobody moved at first, all still paralysed by the news, Tsunade slammed her fist onto her desk, shattering it in half and Team Kakashi rushed out of the room to avoid their leader's wrath.

Out in the corridor, all Sakura could think of…was unusual the timing of this attack. Gaara - who was very much like Naruto and therefore a target of the Akatsuki - had just been snatched away right under everyone's noses. Sakura didn't know if this was a twisted joke on fate's part or merely poor timing. Naruto returns and something bad happens to someone they know. The worst thing was…Sakura had a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach that something much worse was in store for her and her alone.

Such a selfish thought, but the young girl had a feeling similar to the one she had felt whenever she thought of Sasori in danger. The feeling was linked to Sasori and somehow Sakura knew he was linked to this. The big question was, how?


	3. Doubt

**Disclaimer:** I most certainly do NOT own Naruto or anything associated with it. If I did, well... let's just say that I wouldn't make so many amazingly brilliant characters die and the evil so-and-so's would be dead in the most painful ways possible. That is all.

**Authoress' Note:** I feel AWFUL! I had a terrible case of writer's block everyone! I KNEW what I wanted to happen, but I had no way of getting it down on paper. I could imagine it, and dream it, but the words never came to mind. Each thing I put down seemed wrong in some way to me. After much decision making, the second half of this chapter was done in about half an hour, because I'm terribly hesitant to write certain things and I needed to make sure that I had filled in any holes I could.

Thank you to my dear reviewers and my readers. You people inspire me to keep writing, because without any feedback I would not even bother. I crave the attention you all give to my stories, even if it's just clicking on the chapter and reading it. Please enjoy this chapter and leave a nice review, or anything to help me better this would be good too. Tee-Hee!

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**A Broken Friendship**

**Chapter Three: Doubt**

Only a few minutes after being dismissed from Tsunade's office, Team Kakashi had set off for their three day journey to the Sand village, each of them aware of the danger that their mission involved.

Sakura was deeply worried, more so than Naruto and Kakashi. Yet, she couldn't understand why she was. It was as though a large, jagged knife had been shoved into her gut and twisted about painfully. The pain she felt was worse than anything she had ever experience before, but it wasn't anything physical. It was her heart that was in pain.

Sakura couldn't wait for the journey to be over with, so that she could alleviate her fears about Sasori. If she was being rational, then she would have come to realise that nothing could link Sasori to their mission. Unfortunately, the young medic was not thinking with her head, but instead she was thinking with her heart, and her heart was telling her that Sasori was involved somehow.

Sakura tried to recall anything that could make her heart believe so.

He did look like a Sand ninja, especially Gaara, but the pink-haired girl hadn't pried enough to actually confirm this theory. He wore no head-band so she couldn't be certain of which village he had come from. He appeared to have free reign to wherever he wanted to go, with nobody telling him otherwise. He didn't trust anyone quickly and he was hesitant to reveal anything personal about himself.

To add to that, she had come to suspect that Sasori might actually be a dangerous person, but it was difficult to imagine the same Sasori that had cared for her to be dangerous…until she remembered his failed attempt to strangle her in that forest.

The sun was now high in the sky, signalling for midday, when the group stopped to have a short break and rest. Sakura dropped to the floor wearily and opened her bag to get something to drink. As she was taking a sip of her bottled water, a realisation struck her head.

The entire time that she had been with Sasori in that forest, he was wearing that red-cloud cloak. When he had visited her briefly in the Leaf village, he was wearing an entirely black cloak and a hat to cover his face. Such cautious actions are only taken when the person involved is not welcome in that village.

The numbing conclusion made it painful for Sakura to breathe. Her skin paled and she grasped for the air that was becoming increasingly difficult to obtain. Kakashi didn't appear to notice anything wrong with the young girl, but Naruto instantly rushed to Sakura's side. She failed to notice him at all; too afraid of what she had just worked out to truly notice the world around her.

When at last she was able to suck in the much needed air, she started muttering the same words over and over again, "He's a criminal…it can't be…"

"Sakura?! Who is? What's wrong?! Sakura?!" Naruto's panicked voice didn't reach her ears, which had become deaf to the world.

Kakashi, finally seeing that something was very wrong with one of his former pupils, walked slowly towards the crouched figure of the girl. He knelt down beside her huddled form and placed both his hands on her shoulders to get her attention. This action seemed to work, for in her fearful state her emerald eyes managed to focus on the silver-haired Jonin.

"Sakura take a deep breath." She did so, although she was shaking terribly. Kakashi's concerned gaze shifted to Naruto for a moment and the blonde boy moved to the older man's left side.

The Jonin flicked his eyes back to Sakura and spoke slowly and evenly, "Sakura, who is a criminal?"

At first, he thought that she wouldn't answer him. Her eyes had closed off and she seemed almost to be blocking everything out. Then at last she stammered her nervous reply, "M-My new f-friend…"

Naruto spoke up from Kakashi's side, "What new friend Sakura? You never mentioned anyone before…" He trailed off, apparently very confused.

"Y-You never met him before Naruto. H-He hasn't been around for about two weeks now. H-His name is…S-Sasori…"

The name didn't register in Kakashi's mind, so he could only assume that the person wasn't anyone of great danger or a really evil ninja. He'd know for sure if this Sasori person was a wanted criminal, because he had the entire bingo book memorised.

Seeing that Sakura needed to be reassured of her friend's innocence, he told her as much, "Sakura, that name doesn't sound familiar to me. I don't think he's a wanted, dangerous criminal at all. What made you think so in the first place?"

The pink-haired girl scrunched her face in concentration, "Well h-he didn't tell me what village he came from, or much of anything for that matter. H-He also seemed very secretive when he came to visit me a couple of weeks ago, as if h-he wasn't supposed to be there."

Kakashi removed his hands from her shoulders and rocked back on his heels in thought at that. There were many reasons why a person should act in those ways, one of which because they were highly important in their own rights and therefore not permitted to reveal too much information. The other obvious one was that they were a criminal, but since the copy-ninja didn't recognise the name, he ruled that possibility out.

Before Kakashi could comment on what he thought, Naruto voiced his own, less-thought-out opinion, "He's probably just paranoid or something Sakura. Or maybe he's really rich and can't tell you anything because his parents won't let him!"

"Um…I don't think that's the reason Naruto, but thanks anyways." She giggled a little bit, and the two males smiled at seeing Sakura back to her old self once again.

"I'm sure if he's a good friend then you should trust him Sakura." The Jonin sighed and stood up, dusting his trousers off quickly to get rid of non-existent dirt, "Anyway, we should probably get moving again, otherwise we'll never make it to the Sand village."

Both younger ninja nodded and then they moved on from the small spot, where so much doubt had been quickly erased from Sakura's system by the people she felt so close to.

* * *

"Hey, Sasori! Those stupid Sand ninja are still coming. It looks like we'll have to kill them, yeah." declared the blonde Akatsuki, almost gleefully.

His partner grumbled under his breath and then stopped in his tracks and swivelled around to face the rapidly approaching enemy ninja. Deidara stopped his bird and turned it around to face the opposing ninja, who had just about reached the duo.

Sasori estimated that there were about seven Sand ninja, with two leaders in the front. They all appeared to be at the Chunin level or higher, but this didn't worry the puppet master in the slightest. He was only concerned with the fact that Deidara had barely any clay left to use, only one arm and the burden of carrying the unconscious boy as well.

"Deidara, take the boy and go to the cave. Wait for me outside it. Go now before they catch on to follow you."

The blonde looked ready to refuse the order, but when he received a cold glare from his partner he readily obeyed.

"I'll see you later, yeah."

With that, his clay bird flew out of the area, leaving Sasori alone to deal with a group of Sand ninja.

"I have to make this quick."

He slid the scroll that housed his Kazekage puppet down his sleeve and opened it to face his enemies. After performing a quick sign to release the puppet, he watched through the sand that had been blown up as the other ninja took battle stances of their own and prepared for a difficult battle. The red-haired master noted with some curiosity as one of the Sand ninja also used puppets, ones that he himself had actually created many years ago. The blonde girl next to the younger puppet wielder had removed a giant fan from her back and had it positioned for attack. The other ninja all carried kunai and shuriken as their weapons of choice.

Sasori almost laughed. None of them would be able to handle him or his puppet. They were as good as dead before he had even summoned his favourite puppet.

He waited patiently for them to make the first move, for it was only fair that the weak should be allowed a sporting chance. The one with the three puppets began his onslaught, yelling curses and insults at Sasori for taking the boy named Gaara from them. The other Sand ninja behind him also began their own variations of attacks – mostly hurling random ninja tools at Sasori and hoping to hit him.

None of their efforts were effective and within a few moments all five of the back row ninja were left for dead in their own blood. The younger puppeteer was still going strong, but he had been cut by one of Sasori's attacks and the poison from the blade was working its magic in the boy's system.

A kunai shot at Sasori from within one of the puppets and he deftly dodged it before the weapon could embed itself into his body. He glared at the futile attempt the boy had made and watched with some satisfaction as the poison took effect and the boy dropped to the floor in pain.

"I see my poison is working out perfectly. You'll be dead in exactly three days, if I allow you to live that is."

Sasori raised his hand to have the Kazekage slash the boy's head off, but before he could the blonde-haired girl waved her fan with such a force that it knocked him off his feet temporarily.

"Damn bitch, I'll kill you for that!"

The red-haired Akatsuki switched his attack target to the blonde and was about to have his puppet cut her in half, when he stopped suddenly. His eyes widened a fraction as he remembered seeing her face once before, although she had been smiling and laughing…not glaring with sheer hatred. She had been the one who had taken Sakura back to her own village, only two weeks before. Sakura knew this girl. Sakura was _friends_ with this girl. He could not kill her…it would only make Sakura sad.

Sasori lowered his hands and released the chakra strings that held his puppet. The thing dropped to the sandy floor and he carefully placed it back inside its scroll.

His odd actions completely threw off the blonde girl, who nearly fell over from the shock of it.

"What do you think you're doing?!"

He looked at her with a blank face, "I'm letting you live, isn't it obvious?"

He started to walk away, but her words halted him, "Do you think I'll just let you go, you bastard?! You'll regret hurting both of my brothers!"

Her fan blew a tremendous, cutting wind at Sasori, whose cloak started to get shredded from the wind and sand. He turned back to face her and glared coldly, "I never allow anyone to live, so don't push your luck. Either you use this second chance of life I have handed to you and help your friend there, or continue to anger me and die."

"He's not my friend, he's my brother! And that other person you're partner took is my brother too!"

Sasori's glare lessened, "They are both your brothers?"

"Yeah, that's what I said."

"Tell me something…are you quite close to Sakura Haruno?"

Her face showed visible confusion and she hesitated to answer Sasori, "How do you know that name?"

"It matters not how I know her, just answer my question girl." His patience was beginning to wear thin and the blonde was not helping it any.

"…Yes, I'm a friend of Sakura's. Why?"

"Does she know both of your brother's well?"

"…Her best friend is good friends with Gaara and she's on speaking terms with both Gaara and Kankuro…but why do you even want to know?"

Sasori didn't answer the blonde's question. Instead, he put a hand inside his Akatsuki robe and then pulled out a small vial with a pale liquid inside it. He threw it to the blonde, who caught the bottle with ease and looked at it in confusion.

"That vial contains a small amount of the antidote to my poison. Use it on your brother."

Sasori turned around and started walking in the direction Deidara had gone, but once again her voice stopped him, "Why would you do this?" She sounded genuinely confused and also very grateful.

He turned his head and looked over his shoulder at her, "We have a common friend and I would not wish her to be…sad."

She didn't say anything and Sasori was finally able to get moving, although he did so at a slow pace to think things over in his own head.

He didn't notice the smile that passed over the blonde's face as he went on.


	4. Resolve

**DISCLAIMER:** I honestly do not own 'Naruto' or anything associated with the manga or anime. This story came from my twisted imagination and will not go away until I finish it, so do not hassle me about a law suit or I'll explode!

**Authoress' Note:** Mega sorry for not updating in ages. Two reasons. Reason the first - my laptop died and I was stuck using my dad's ancient pc that freezes mid-sentence when I type. Reason the second - I had a severe mental block when it came to writing this chapter. I was hesitant to write it how I wanted to in fear that people would gut me, but hopefully nobody will. I hope so anyways...

Please enjoy and leave reviews to let me know what you think! Thank you so much for waiting so long!

* * *

**A Broken Friendship**

**Chapter Four: Resolve**

Sasori continued his slow pace across the desert, heading for the river and the cave where Deidara was waiting for him. He had never been so torn as he was at that moment. He'd knowingly given aid to the enemy when he had them so completely at his mercy. He should have killed them both so that there would be no survivors to tell the tale.

"What was I thinking?! Now those two will tell their whole bloody village about me and Deidara! Why am I being so soft?!" A bright smile and deep emerald green eyes flashed through his mind, making the Akatsuki member stop in his tracks. He sighed heavily, "She's the reason. Sakura's made me weak."

He frowned in thought at his own words.

"Has she really? It felt right when I was helping her escape that village. I even saved her life from all of those ninja because I was worried about her safety. Is that weakness or not?"

While Sasori pondered over this, he walked no further and time seemed to fly by quickly. Before too long, it was night-time and the puppet master still had a good hour to go before he reached the river. Thinking that it would be best to just sit and think rather than head to his destination in a dark mood, Sasori found a decent spot of shrubbery amongst the sand and sat down, crossing both his arms and his legs.

He still had no answer to his question and if he didn't decide soon, he would be out of time and he'd be forced to go with one solution only: forgetting about Sakura.

* * *

"We're almost there Sakura! It's just over this next hill." Naruto happily declared to his depressed friend.

Naruto was far too happy under the circumstances, Sakura decided, but she couldn't wait to get to the village either. Her nerves were on high alert; she just wanted to know whether Gaara would be okay, and also whether Sasori was alright too. After his mission, she'd be able to see him again and hopefully get some proper answers from him about where he comes from and what he actually did. She would never hate the red-head, she had decided, but she would be sorely upset if she was not told anything whatsoever.

The trio ran at top speed over the sand hill and the tall stone buildings of the Village Hidden in the Sand greeted their tired eyes. It was early morning, and the bright light was just peeking over the hills behind the three Leaf ninja, creating long shadows that crawled across the desert to the village gates.

Kakashi led the way to the gates that would admit them access once they showed their papers, but when they got there they found a poorly guarded post with only one Sand ninja - and he looked positively worn-out.

The man glanced at their head bands and then said in a tired voice, "Show me your papers and state your business for being in the village."

Kakashi handed the man the papers written, signed and stamped by the Fifth Hokage herself and then told the man that they were the support that had been requested from the Leaf village.

"Alright, you may pass." He stood to the side and the three travellers strode quickly through the large stone gates and into the Sand village. Their destination was the large building that the Kazekage normally occupied, which loomed over the smaller buildings in the very centre of everything.

When they entered the building, they were told that everyone was over at the hospital. So, the new destination was the Sand village hospital.

Kakashi, of course, had not seen the place before. Nor had Naruto. Sakura was the only one who knew exactly where it was, so she took charge and showed them where they would need to go.

"It's just past those houses over there." She pointed with her left index finger to the far left and the two guys nodded.

The area that the Sand hospital was situated in wasn't the most impressive part of the village, but the hospital did have a few redeeming qualities to it. Such as its impressive green-house where all the flowers and herbs for medicine grew. Another was the kindness of the staff members. None of the doctors or nurses treated the patients or guests with malice or cruelty. They healed whoever needed it and didn't judge a person based on their wealth, their nature or even their nation.

Sakura remembered the kindness of the doctor who had saved her life only a couple of weeks ago, as well as the nurse at the reception desk who had handed her the note from Sasori. The words he had written had filled her with such happiness that she couldn't help but smile at the memory. Now more than ever, Sakura wanted to see Sasori to put her fears to rest.

The trio stepped through the doors of the hospital and Kakashi approached the desk, where the exact same nurse who had been there before sat. She recognised Sakura at once and a happy look crossed her face momentarily, but it vanished when she finally took note of Kakashi's presence.

"How may I help you sir?" she asked in all politeness.

"We're looking for either Temari, Kankuro or Baki. We were told that everyone who should be at the Kazekage's building are actually in the hospital."

The nurse nodded her head once in agreement and then brought up the information on her computer, "Miss Temari is with her brother in room four. That's just down the corridor to your right and on your left."

Kakashi thanked the woman and then he and Naruto walked on down the narrow corridor that led to the room mentioned. Sakura hesitated for a moment and looked at the receptionist who smiled somewhat sadly back at her.

Sakura didn't have a chance to wonder what had caused her to look so forlorn, because Naruto had seen her hesitation and come back to drag the pink-haired girl into the room with him.

When Sakura entered the small hospital room, she saw Kankuro lying down in the bed, sleeping peacefully, with his older sister Temari sat next to him in a chair. She looked so miserable and weary, that the younger girl's heart immediately ached for her loss. The blonde woman had lost her youngest brother to the Akatsuki and it appeared that Kankuro had also been injured as well.

Naruto, who was clearly more distressed by what he was seeing than anybody else in the room, growled out angrily, "Those damned Akatsuki! They'll pay!"

Temari spun around in her seat and looked relatively startled to find that the three from the Village Hidden in the Leaves were even there. "W-What are you guys doing here?"

Kakashi decided it would be best if he explained matters, since he knew he could be brief and coherent at least, "We're the support that was requested under your council members' orders. And we were under the impression that everyone would be in this hospital."

Temari smiled sadly, "The others are all here, but they're in another room discussing what should be done. I couldn't leave Kankuro's side. Note after what has happened." She turned her sad smile upon her sleeping brother and didn't look back at the others any longer.

Kakashi took that as his cue to leave the room and find the council, so he exited the room silently. Naruto hovered near the door and Sakura moved closer to Temari. The blonde flicked her eyes to the rosette, but said nothing.

Sakura broke the silence first with a quiet question, "Will he be okay?" She motioned to Kankuro's peaceful form on the hospital bed in front of them both.

"Kankuro was poisoned in the fight, but we managed to give him the antidote in time. He'll live." Her voice was so deadpan that Sakura couldn't determine whether she was happy or sad about the circumstances. On the one hand, her littlest brother was in the hands of the enemy; but on the other hand, she still had one that was alive and safe.

"How did you make the antidote? Was it a common poison?" The medic in Sakura just had to know the details. If there was in deed a foe using poison, they would need to cure the effects quickly.

At this, Temari hesitated with her answer. After a long and almost ominous silence that began to eat at Sakura's heart, the older girl spoke up, "The poison was not something we had ever encountered. It was eating at Kankuro's body from the inside, killing him slowly. It was supposed to take until three days were up to finish its job, but for some reason the Akatsuki member gave me an antidote at the end of the fight. There was enough for one person and I didn't think at the time that I would need it to make more, so I used it instantly. Kankuro has been resting since the attack, but the poison has been completely neutralised in his system." She grimaced slightly at her next words, "Looking back, I probably shouldn't have used it straight away so we could get the doctors to make more."

"Probably…" Sakura wasn't too focused on her own words anymore, since that poison sounded terribly familiar. Almost like something that Sasori would have used…

A loud crash and a yell came from the room right at the end of the hallway, and Naruto quickly left to go and see what had happened. Sakura almost followed after him, but Temari's hand grabbed her wrist before she had the chance to.

"Sakura…you know who that Akatsuki is, don't you?" Her tone wasn't accusatory at all, but Sakura couldn't understand what she was talking about.

"Temari, what do you mean? I don't know anyone in the Akatsuki."

Her heart still felt like it was cracking slightly even as she said those words.

Temari gave her a hard look, "He said that he knew you. He didn't want you to be sad, so he gave me that antidote and let the both of us live."

The other woman's words weren't making much sense to the girl from the Leaf village. She didn't even know what the Akatsuki looked like, let alone know one on a first name basis.

"Temari, I honestly don't know what you're saying. I don't even know what the Akatsuki look like! Nobody told me yet!" Her voice raised to an almost panicked level by that point, for in her heart she felt that she already knew exactly what Temari was talking about.

"All Akatsuki wear black robes with red clouds on them."

Sakura felt a great crack in her chest as her heart began to break apart rapidly, "W-What?"

Temari seemed somewhat confused at her friend's reaction, "You didn't know that he was an Akatsuki, did you?"

Tears fell from her eyes, but she didn't even register their existence, "You m-must be w-wrong! S-Sasori is nothing like them! He can't be with the…the…the…"

The word wouldn't leave Sakura's lips and she fell to the hard floor in her confusion and despair. Temari let go of the younger girl's wrist and left her sleeping brother's side to comfort the weeping girl before her.

"Sakura, where did you meet this…Sasori person?"

She took a deep, steadying breath, "A couple of weeks ago or so, in the far west of the Wind Country. I was on a mission with Ino and Hinata, but I went ahead without them when Gaara told us not to go. It was there that I met Sasori and we helped each other escape from that awful place. He even saved me Temari! He brought me back to this village and made sure I was healed in this hospital! So how can he be bad?!"

Temari remained silent while she thought this all through. Obviously, since meeting Sakura, the guy had changed a little bit. He'd saved Sakura before and he even spared the lives of herself and Kankuro when he could have killed them. He probably had a soft spot for the pink-haired girl or something…

"Sakura, what does he mean to you?"

"He…" Sakura couldn't really say what Sasori meant to her. She cared about him - which was clear. They were friends too, both had agreed to it. Yet…she wasn't so sure that she even knew him enough to say they were friends. Still, Temari needed an answer, so Sakura tried to respond as truthfully as she could manage, "He's my friend. I care about him Temari and I would hate for him to get hurt. Does that make me a traitor?"

"No, Sakura, you could never be a traitor." Temari enveloped her friend in a tight hug when she saw even more tears falling from Sakura's green eyes. She'd never been the type to comfort, but she was trying her best for her distraught friend.

When at last the sobbing had ended, Temari released Sakura from her hold and looked her straight in the eyes, "What will you do if you have to fight him Sakura?"

The girl's pupils widened greatly, as if this had never once crossed her fragile mind until now, "I…don't know Temari. I don't think I could hurt him…"

Temari frowned at this, but then she smirked, "Let's hope he's worth the trouble he's putting you through! And he said he didn't want you to be sad? Ha! Look what's happened now!"

The fifteen-year-old smiled at her friend's attempt at lightening the mood, just as Naruto and Kakashi stepped back into the room, with an older lady in toe. Both girls straightened up and rose quickly.

Kakashi cleared his throat, "This is Lady Chiyo, Sakura. She's an elder and she insists that she come with us to rescue the Kazekage." Sakura looked at the older lady, slightly puzzled that a senior woman such as herself would be of any possible help in the mission.

Naruto noticed Sakura's puffy eyes and instantly darted to her side, "Eh?! Sakura! Why have you been crying?!"

"Tch, who says I was crying? You're crazy Naruto, as always…"

"But I saw…your eyes…oh forget it…" he sighed in defeat and then turned back to Kakashi and Lady Chiyo.

Kakashi continued with his explanation, "I've sent Pakkun ahead to track down the sent of Gaara and hopefully locate the enemy's base. With any luck he'll be back soon and we can carry out our mission. In the mean time, I think it would be best if we all got some rest from our long journey."

Both younger Leaf ninja nodded and everyone headed for the nearest inn to rest in for at least a couple of hours. Only Sakura couldn't seem to even close her eyes and get the sleep she so deserved. Sakura's heart was being yanked around by both her logical side and her feelings for Sasori. She knew that Temari wasn't lying to her about Sasori being an Akatsuki – the description about the cloaks was enough evidence as it was. She also knew that if the others worked out that she was friends with an Akatsuki, they would only see her as a traitor. Realistically, Sakura had two choices before her: forget about Sasori and carry out the mission; or continue to follow her heart and probably wind up branded a traitor and executed. Neither were appealing to the young girl, as she so desperately wanted a third option where none of this mattered and Sasori could be her friend and they could both live happily.

"But that can never be, because he is an Akatsuki and I'm a Leaf ninja…"

She eventually drifted to sleep with terrifying dreams about a battle to the death between Sasori and herself.

* * *

It was the middle of the day when Sasori decided that he had best head back to Deidara; his mind was now fully made up. He could already anticipate his partner's reaction to his decision. There would be lots of swearing and complaining possibly even an explosion or two. None of that bothered the puppet master though, as his only thought throughout the whole of the night and the morning had been on Sakura and the feelings that he felt when she was around or he thought of her.

He made his way through a small stretch of trees and finally he reached the river where Deidara was waiting for him. The blonde explosives expert was dosing at the water's edge, with his large clay bird next to him, still holding the unconscious Gaara in its tail.

The red-head nudged Deidara awake with his foot and then waited for the blonde to get off his arse.

"What took you so long, yeah?! I've been waiting fucking hours for you Sasori! The brat nearly escaped three times, yeah, so I had to keep knocking him out!"

Sasori glared at his partner and replied with just a hint of his anger, "I was dealing with the stragglers and then I had some thinking to do. If you were having so much difficulty watching the boy, then perhaps I should have left you to stop the ninja while I watched the kid!"

Deidara sensed the anger and quickly made to apologise, "Jeez, yeah, I'm sorry! I just didn't think you'd take so long, yeah."

"I suppose I was a long time…" The puppet master turned his gaze to the stone wall in front of the cave that he and Deidara were expected to take the demon container to. "I won't do this anymore Deidara."

The blonde had no clue what his partner was talking about, of course, "Huh?"

"I won't be in the Akatsuki anymore."

Deidara's whole face nearly hit the floor from his shock, "WHAT?!"

"You heard me." Sasori's voice was calm, but the anger returned to it when he said that.

"Okay, let me change the question, yeah." Deidara took a long, dramatic breath and let it out. Then, "WHY would you want to quit?!"

"I told you I had been doing some thinking. What's the point in me doing all of these things for our Leader? What do I get out of it? I'm not interested in world domination or anything so large-scale. I don't even need to be in this organisation to acquire more subjects for my puppets, since I know I can get people myself. I'm sick of being someone else's _puppet_." He said the last word with malice and Deidara actually flinched when he heard it.

Of course, the blonde wasn't entirely stupid. He knew there had to be another reason. "You're going to leave for her too aren't you? That Sakura girl, yeah."

Sasori narrowed his eyes at his partner's clever observation. "She's part of the reason."

Deidara grinned, "Well, whatever. I won't stop you, yeah! Especially when you put it like that! She must mean a lot if you'd quit something you've been in for years, yeah." The blonde's grin even met his eyes, or at least, the one that was visible to Sasori. "I have just one question for you, yeah."

Sasori wasn't sure he liked how happy Deidara was being about this subject. "What?"

"Can I quit too?"


	5. Distrust

Disclaimer: I do not own 'Naruto' or anything associated with the anime or manga. I simple adore Sasori and I would love for him to have a happy ending to his life, so here's my dreadful attempt.

Authoress' Note: I honestly don't know what has possessed me right now, but SOMEHOW I'm using a decent amount of description and stuff to make my story interesting to me! It's a shocker to the system. I've been afflicted with the writing bug I think, so there should even be a new chapter sometime soon, like tomorrow or the following day. Anywho, please enjoy this and review to let me know what you think!

Thanks to: **AmoraPyra**, **mew luchia**, **musa uchiha**, **otaku no baka** and all those who bother to read this. You make me smile!

* * *

  


**A Broken Friendship**

**Chapter Five: Distrust**

There was a knock at the door. Sakura blinked her heavy, sleep-filled eyelids open and rolled over on the bed to face the door. The knock sounded again and she sleepily called out, "Come in!" to the person on the other side of the wooden door.

The handle twisted and in stepped Naruto, who looked particularly more hyper than usual. His grin was spreading from ear to ear as he almost yelled at the tired girl, "Sakura! Guess what?"

The pink-haired ninja rubbed at her eyes to try and wake up fully, while she mumbled groggily, "What, Naruto?"

"Kakashi said that Pakkun came back a few minutes ago, so we can save Gaara now! Isn't that great?"

"Yeah, terrific Naruto. Just let me wake up properly and I'll see you outside, 'kay?"

"Yeah, okay Sakura." He was still smiling when the door closed once more and his excited footsteps echoed down the hallway outside her room.

Sakura just sighed as she sat up on the bed and dangled her legs over the side of it. She slowly reached for her shoes and began to put them on in a daze. While she had slept, her mind had been plaguing her with horrific images that she dared not recall again. She feared for her sanity if the information Temari had given her was correct. If Sasori was in fact a member of the Akatsuki and one of the people responsible for kidnapping Gaara, not only would she be forced to fight him, she might even have to kill him! If he lived, he'd only be captured and interrogated. Then he would be publicly executed and she'd be forced to see him die.

She slipped on the second shoe and then stood up, stretching her still sleeping muscles. After that, Sakura glanced at the tall mirror on the wall next to the bed and quickly ran her fingers through her messy hair to make it neater. Satisfied with her work, the girl from the Leaf village grabbed her headband and placed it on top of her pink hair, tying the ribbon into a bow to keep it there.

"Here goes nothing."

She stepped out of her room and jogged down the hallway, down the stairs and out of the inn, coming to a stop when she met up with Naruto and the rest of their small group. The blonde was grinning, as he always tended to do when they were about to carry out a mission, while Kakashi and Chiyo both wore grave expressions. Personally, Sakura still couldn't work out what the elder would actually be doing to aid their rescue operation, but she had no business with voicing her opinion.

Kakashi cleared his throat to grab everyone's attention before he spoke, "Pakkun said that the Akatsuki have set up a small camp next to a river only an hour away from where Kankuro and Temari had fought them. All we have to do is go through a small patch of trees and we should find them."

Everyone nodded and waited for him to continue the short briefing, "Our job is to retrieve the Kazekage and return to the Sand village. If we must battle with either of the Akatsuki, we are not to engage them alone. Is that understood?" The Jonin made a point of fixing Naruto a small glare with that last part, as if ordering him not to fight the enemy at all.

Sakura dearly hoped that they wouldn't need to fight anyone. She didn't think that it would be possible for her to hurt Sasori, even if she tried to. He was practically invincible. His puppet mastery alone was so flawless that she doubted if anyone could rival his skills. Then there was the power of his puppets to take into account. Each of them felt no pain, unlike people, so they could continuously attack a target until the target was dead or the puppet destroyed. Each weapon the puppets possessed was also coated in a deadly poison that could kill a human being in the most painful way imaginable. The strongest thing in Sasori's arsenal, as Sakura had witnessed first-hand, was himself. Sasori was deadly even without all of his puppets. The fifteen-year-old wondered if he would use his own body to fight them, or his large selection of puppets.

"Let's go then. We should try to hide our chakra signatures when we're close so they do not notice us, so when we reach the forest don't use any chakra to move quickly."

Naruto nodded and Sakura sighed in resignation, knowing that this mission would be a serious and difficult one for her to carry out. Secretly, in her heart, she wished that everything would work out and Sasori would escape with his life. She could be happy if she knew that he lived through this. She'd be ecstatic if they all survived really.

The four ninja sprinted at top speed out of the Sand village and proceeded to head slightly north, where a distant speck of greenery could be seen. Luckily, there was no sandstorm to combat and no traps to avoid. It was a fairly uneventful journey, until they at last approached the large patch of trees that were clumped together. It was a very small forest, but to Sakura the large trunks of the trees seemed to tower over her ominously, making the girl cower away from them in fear. They were so like the ones from the Darkness village, yet so different at the same time. She knew that she would not be engulfed in nothingness when she stepped into them, but she felt like the end of them would still give her a sense of nothingness.

At the very end of this small forest was Sasori.

She took a hesitant step into the trees.

Her heart thudded loudly in her chest.

* * *

Sasori of the Red Sand was bored. He hated waiting, but he knew this was the only option he and Deidara had. If either of them returned the kid back to his village in person, the Sand ninja would attempt to capture and slaughter them.

Sasori's brilliant plan was to wait for someone to come to them, and then to plead their case to the much smaller group of ninja. It would be much easier to move safely if they had less potential threats to concern themselves with.

If the plan failed and they were both forced into a confrontation – a likely outcome Sasori felt – then both himself and Deidara would simply leave the Kazekage with the ninja and flee as quickly as possible on the ex-Stone ninja's clay bird.

"Hey Sasori? How long is this going to take, yeah? I'm bored!"

Apparently, Deidara was also bored.

Sasori really should have been the one complaining more, since it was never his style to wait for anyone, but this was all for a worthwhile cause. If this plan worked without any problems or complications, then he'd be able to see Sakura without worrying about getting killed on sight. Not that any pathetic ninja could ever kill him...

Still, Sasori wasn't going to sit back and take Deidara's complaints, "Shut up Deidara! You'll have to wait a little longer. It won't be long now, but if you complain again I'll make you take the kid back to the village on your own and watch as they all kill you."

"Alright! I get it, yeah! I'll shut up! Just stop saying you'll get me killed, yeah! It's just not…nice…" The blonde trailed off and mumbled something about ungrateful puppet people, sulking in a highly childish way.

Sasori often wondered why he surrounded himself with immature people. While it was true that he didn't even look 20 on the outside, in his mind he was in his thirties. He could act fairly immature when he felt like it, but he was also an adult – even more so than Deidara claimed to be. What puzzled the puppeteer was how much younger and more alive he seemed to be when Sakura was near him. He felt like a teenager again. She made him feel happy. He was pretty sure he didn't love her, but the feeling was definitely bordering on deep affection.

"I wonder who they'll send, yeah..? What if it's loads of ninja? What should we do then Sasori? Kill them or still try the plan, yeah?"

Deidara just would not be silent and Sasori was starting to believe that being quiet was not part of his many skills. He didn't even look at the artist when he spoke in monotone, "We'll run away."

The answer didn't seem to please Deidara, but he accepted it anyway, "Oh…"

Movement from Deidara's clay bird caught both ninja's attention and they glanced at the slowly awakening youth held within the tail of the bird. He groaned and managed to lift his hand up to rub his aching head, where a large lump was forming. When he opened his teal eyes, they widened a fraction in panic at where he was and who was with him.

Before Deidara could do anything to put him back to sleep – although Sasori was sorely tempted to find out what the younger man did to achieve this – Sasori turned his body to face the boy and he spoke to him, "You're finally awake."

Gaara's eyes shifted to Sasori's own ones and he almost seemed to be afraid, though he covered his fear with anger easily enough, for they narrowed and glared fiercely at Sasori.

Sasori's calm voice continued to speak, a smirk playing on his lips when he saw the fury in the boy, "If you promise to be a good captive, we'll let you stretch your legs."

Gaara kept his glare on Sasori, but finally he relented and nodded a yes. Sasori motioned to Deidara, who in turn commanded the bird to unfold its tail feathers of clay.

Gaara shakily stood up, stretching his sore arms out to keep his balance. He still wasn't recovered from the battle with Deidara, so his muscles were aching and his chakra was still at a bare minimum. To put it plainly, Gaara felt like crap.

He took a shaky step off the clay creation and tumbled forwards onto the hard, rocky floor in front of him. Deidara burst out laughing at the kid's misfortune, while Sasori just sighed at how weak Gaara was.

The young Kazekage tried to get up off the ground, but he had no more energy with which to push himself up. He was face down, on the ground, with two of his enemies watching everything he did. Gaara decided at that moment that his current situation was by far the most embarrassing thing that had ever happened to him.

Deidara didn't seem capable of stopping his laughter anytime soon, so Sasori silenced him with a quick whack on his head. The bomb expert feigned a hurt look on his face while Sasori just marched towards Gaara and pulled him up until he could sit easily.

Both red-haired ninja looked at each other, one with no visible emotions and the other with an almost surprised expression. Gaara never expected to be allowed some small freedom nor did he expect to be helped up by his enemy. He guessed he should be dead by now, judging by the time of day. So why hadn't they killed him yet?

With a lot of effort, the boy cleared his parched throat and asked one question, "What do you plan to do with me?"

Sasori's eyes flicked to a random spot in the trees, as if he could see the approaching ninja there. He gave his answer while not looking at Gaara, almost worried that his eyes might give something away, although he doubted that very much, "We plan to return you to your village. We're not going to take your demon and we won't kill you either, so you have no reason to be afraid. Just be a good little boy and don't piss either of us off."

Gaara wasn't one to just cast away good fortunes so quickly, but he really couldn't fathom why they'd go through so much trouble to capture him if they were going to let him go anyway. It was strange and definitely not what he expected of the Akatsuki.

"Why are you letting me go?"

Sasori noted that there was a faint hint of suspicion in the boy's tone, but the rest was all carefully masked. He didn't bother to answer the kid. It wasn't his business anyway. He should be grateful to be alive!

"What are you planning?" Gaara's voice raised ever-so-slightly, trying to command an answer out of both Akatsuki, "You're going to kill everyone in the village when I'm returned, aren't you?!" Okay, so Gaara knew that that was a pretty far-fetched plan, but he wanted them to give him a reason for sparing him.

Sasori's dark eyes snapped to Gaara's when he yelled that they were going to murder his whole village. Normally, such a declaration would have gone right over the red-head's mind, as such a thing had never bothered him before. Now, however, he felt much differently. He knew that wiping out all the people of the Sand village would so badly effect Sakura that she would hate him forever. On top of that, he honestly didn't think he could kill people that had assisted in the healing of his first true friend and the one person who he'd actually started to care for deeply. It was unthinkable now and frankly he was insulted that the annoying boy would even suggest such a thing.

"I do not plan to do that, little Kazekage. I have told you the plan and that is all you need to know. Any normal person would be thrilled to learn that they get to live after meeting with either of us, so what does it matter that we're not going to kill you?"

Gaara could hear a small degree of hurt and anger in the other man's voice, so he quietly said, "I just want to know why you are doing this, after he," Gaara pointed to Deidara, "attacked my village, fought with me and then kidnapped me."

The blonde spoke up, "He's got a point, yeah. This doesn't make sense at all from his perspective."

It was said so matter-of-factly, that Sasori couldn't argue with his partner's logic or Gaara's. With a defeated sigh the puppet master began to explain, "I decided to quit the Akatsuki and Deidara also wants to. He says he'd rather stick with me than stay with a bunch of brainless bastards who didn't let him choose what he wanted. So, our plan is to wait for some ninja from your village to come to your rescue and just bargain our way into some kind of freedom. We're handing you back to them even if they try to kill us, so you don't have to worry about that. All we need is for you to make sure they don't stab us in the back."

Gaara carefully sifted through Sasori's words, trying to find a lie in there somewhere and failing. As far as he could tell, he was telling the truth and they both genuinely wanted to quit the Akatsuki. Gaara's only other question now, was the reason why this man wanted to quit. He had the blonde's – Deidara's – reason but not this one's. He didn't even know his name.

"What's your name?" he asked the puppet master.

Sasori blinked, a little shocked that he would even want to know and only just realising that the boy hadn't been told it yet.

"I'm Sasori."

"Well, Sasori, what's your reason for leaving the Akatsuki? You didn't say. You only gave your partner's reason."

Once more Sasori's eyes focused on a point in the trees, but this time it was because he had heard a faint rustling and swishing from within the tiny forest. Deidara noticed too and Gaara's question remained unanswered as a group of four ninja – three Leaf and one Sand – emerged from the greenery.

Sasori's eyes took each face in, a little surprised at how few there were and that only one came from Sand, and his reddish-brown eyes stopped when he saw two very familiar faces – his Grandmother Chiyo and Sakura.

Apparently, both women were also surprised, although Chiyo looked positively petrified at his appearance. He didn't blame her either; she had probably expected to see him 20 years older than when she had last seen him.

"About time, yeah!" Deidara exclaimed happily.


	6. Hate

**Disclaimer:** I do not own 'Naruto' or anything associated with the manga or anime. This story is purely for entertainment purposes.

**Authoress' Note:** I am sorry for not updating last night like I said I would. I finished the chapter and then the internet died in my house for the whole night! It was annoying. Anywho, I'm not that pleased with this chapter, but ah well. Enjoy!

* * *

**A Broken Friendship**

**Chapter Six: Hate**

When Sakura exited the small forest with the others, she wasn't expecting the sight that her eyes beheld. There were two Akatsuki – everyone expected that – and there was a large bird-like thing behind the duo. The thing that confused Sakura more than anything else was the fact that Gaara was not dead, not restrained and seemed to be in fairly good health. Surely he'd at least be tied up by something?

She looked at the two Akatsuki and saw that the blonde who had spoken was missing his left arm. She bet he lost that fighting Gaara, which would serve him right. His voice seemed familiar to her, although she couldn't quite work out where she'd heard it. Not too long ago, perhaps.

Then her expressive eyes landed on the second Akatsuki and her vision became a little blurred. Standing in front of her, exactly like she had been dreading, was Sasori. There really was no mistaking that hair or those eyes, or the blank expression he usually wore on his face when he tried to pretend not to feel anything.

A droplet of water fell from her eyes and down onto the ground below her, but she barely seemed to notice. Her friend was actually in the Akatsuki and she had been stupid to try and convince herself that he could not be. That they could ever be more than mortal enemies was ridiculous.

She blinked her eyes and wiped away the tears that had failed to fall; fortunately nobody seemed to be watching her except for Sasori. She heard a sharp intake of breath and heard the old lady Chiyo mutter quietly, "Sasori…" Sakura was curious now. Chiyo seemed to recognise the puppeteer.

"Give back Gaara!" Naruto yelled and Sakura distinctly heard Sasori sigh in irritation over the situation. Clearly they weren't detaining Gaara at all, but Naruto was apparently blind to this small detail.

Sasori motioned to his partner and the blonde man moved towards the still sitting Kazekage. He started to pull him to his feet with the only arm he had and Naruto immediately thought the worst, as he tried to run to save Gaara from his captors. Kakashi, luckily, stopped Naruto from taking another step and the blonde Akatsuki finally had Gaara on his feet.

The young Kazekage walked forwards slowly, with both Akatsuki not too far away from him if he decided to fall over again. "Naruto, calm down! I'm fine now, see?" He gestured with his hands to show that he had no serious physical damage to his body, even though he was still very weak. Gaara looked over at Kakashi, his face very serious and more like the leader he was appointed to be. "They've requested for a guarantee that they will not be harmed or locked away if they return with us. Since I'm the Kazekage I see no reason why not, but it will create some complications with the other Hidden Villages."

Kakashi looked sternly at Gaara and then his one visible eye assessed the two Akatsuki standing near him. "Why would they take you away if they are just going to return you in the first place?"

Sakura also wanted to know the reason. She was practically going to burst if she didn't hear Sasori explain his actions. Sadly, she couldn't yet reveal that she knew him, or she'd be considered a traitor to her own village - although, it wasn't her fault that she didn't know how to identify Akatsuki members.

Gaara was about to explain the whole situation, but Sasori beat him to it, "We want to leave the Akatsuki. I decided to do this while on my way to this spot where Deidara was waiting with the little Kazekage. Is that enough of an explanation for you?"

Sakura hadn't heard the puppet master speak so coldly in such a long time. She remembered hearing that dark, spiteful voice when they had first met, but he had lightened up greatly the longer they were with each other. For him to suddenly go back to this actually frightened the pink-haired girl. What if he didn't even care about her anymore?

Kakashi nodded his head, although Sakura could tell he was reluctant to accept only a small amount of information for a reason. "That'll do for now, but you are both wanted criminals and I'm sure that our Hokage won't let you wander around free until you're tried for your crimes."

Sasori gave a glare to the silver-haired Jonin. "Then I guess we will only remain around the Wind Country, if you think your Hokage will put us on trial."

The blonde man – who Sakura supposed must be Deidara – seemed to be growing bored with all the standing around and talking. He sat down, with his right leg propped up and his right arm on it, and then rested his chin onto his arm. He looked prepared for a long, long talk. Sakura supposed he had the right idea and she actually smiled slightly at his actions.

Deidara noticed and looked up at her, a small grin on his face. It was like he had a secret to tell her, and she could guess that it had something to do with his partner. If these two were almost always together, then he might have been there when that large group of Darkness ninja attacked her. After all, she clearly remembered hearing his voice from a not too distant past.

To her left Sakura could see that Chiyo had gotten over her previous shock and was now thinking things through in her mind. About what, Sakura hadn't a clue. All the girl knew was that the elder kept looking oddly at Sasori.

"Sasori, how much longer is this gonna take, yeah?" whined Deidara.

There was a small twitch in the puppet master's right eye, but he managed to answer the blonde man with a calm and composed voice, "As long as it needs to, Deidara. If you're bored then go mess around with your art. Just don't bother me."

The blonde gave his partner a glare, but somehow he obeyed and took a small piece of white clay from one of his bags. He placed it into his palm and started to mould it, not really knowing what he would make. It kept the man quiet though, which Sakura noted made Sasori a little pleased. She personally found Deidara to be amusing.

Kakashi decided on a different approach, "If you give the Leaf village all of your information on the Akatsuki, I'm almost positive that the Hokage will overlook your criminal records."

"Hey, Sasori, let's go with that idea, yeah! It sounds a lot better than your plan anyways."

Apparently Deidara wasn't that absorbed in his sculpting.

"Fine, we'll agree to those terms. Just ensure that we don't wind up dead."

The threat in Sasori's voice was crystal clear to everyone, and Sakura had to wonder yet again why she had stopped seeing him as a dangerous person and started to see him in a good light. What were his good qualities?

"Good, now I think it would be best if we all head back to the Sand village. They need their Kazekage after all." Kakashi's happy gleam was back in his visible eye, and Naruto grinned somewhat at his comment when he noticed the lighter atmosphere.

With the copy-ninja leading the group, they proceeded back to into the forest that would take them to the village that so desperately missed its leader.

* * *

Sasori continued to glance at Sakura, who was walking just slightly in front of him. To his left was Deidara and behind the pair of them was Chiyo, Sasori's grandmother. In front of Sakura were Naruto and Gaara, both talking about something or other and even laughing occasionally. Sasori honestly didn't know how the boys could be so relaxed with two potentially dangerous ninja among them.

Sasori was mildly surprised that Chiyo hadn't tried to talk to him or even get his attention. She just seemed to be in silent contemplation throughout the negotiations and even while they were travelling. They hadn't gone far, really, but he still expected some kind of words to spout from her old mouth. Maybe she had become a mute because of her grief?

Deidara was being unnaturally silent as well. He supposed that was because the blonde was not really thinking at all, merely working on auto-pilot. Sasori used to accuse him of having his head in the clouds all the time, but the blonde sometimes literally did so that was soon abandoned. In the end, Sasori had simply settled on Deidara being slightly dumber than he was; thus he had less matters to concern and stress over in life.

The puppet master looked at Sakura once again, noticing the slight slouch of her shoulders and the way her feet sometimes dragged along the ground. If he were to make a guess, he would say that she was upset by something. Sasori knew it was his fault that the girl was upset. He had omitted certain details about his life from her and she had to discover the truth in the worst way possible. Granted, there could have been an even more terrible scenario that might have taken place; Sasori could have chosen to forget about Sakura and carried on being in the Akatsuki. The result would have been a dangerous battle and one of them would have died.

He couldn't take not talking to her.

He had to hear her voice.

He had to know if they were still friends or not.

With a determined stride he reached Sakura's side. She seemed startled at first, but she quickly went back to being gloomy. He could tell now more than ever, as he had a perfect view of her face and eyes, that she was upset over something. He never wanted to make her sad, but now she was.

"Sakura."

She blinked and made a quiet "hmm?" noise in her throat, but there was nothing else for Sasori to go on. All he could tell was that she was sad. Very, very sad.

"You seem...sad?"

Conversations like this were unfamiliar to Sasori, but he would make the effort for Sakura. After all, one of the things that made a good friend was caring about the other person. So, he would try.

"R-Really?"

She seemed nervous, but Sasori couldn't understand why.

Nobody had yet noticed that he had moved next to Sakura – except of course for Deidara – and they hadn't realised that he was talking to her either. With luck, he could have a conversation and not get any unwanted attention from the other ninja.

Sasori shifted his normally cold eyes to her face and allowed his concern to show for once within their dark depths. "Do you hate me for lying to you?" he whispered quietly to the depressed girl.

The question and the expressiveness in his eyes and voice caught Sakura off guard. She seemed to take forever to come to a decision about her own feelings. Sasori wouldn't have been surprised if she never wanted to see him again. She'd most likely call their short and bizarre friendship off and then run away to her other friends that weren't murderers. He wouldn't be surprised, but it would still hurt.

"I...don't know. I should hate you, but...I don't think I can..."

Sakura didn't sound happy with her own answer, but Sasori certainly was. If she didn't hate him, then there was a chance that he could remain her friend. A small voice in his head said that he really wanted to be more than just a friend to Sakura, but he chose not to listen to it. After all, only crazy people listened to the voices in their own minds.

"Are we...still friends then, Sakura?"

Sasori was nervous, his voice even shook with how nervous he truly was. She had to say yes! If she didn't, he'd turn around and leave forever, never looking back.

"...Yes, if you still want to be, that is..?"

The question was spoken timidly, so Sasori simply nodded a yes to it. He honestly didn't think he could say the words out loud. Such a simple question, but at the same time it was so complex. He had never before felt such a strong attachment to one person; it was stronger even than the one he had had for his parents. If he were forced to give Sakura up, or lose her, then he would not even know how to function. That was the reason he had decided to quit the Akatsuki - the real reason.

He still had Sakura's friendship and she didn't hate him.

Nothing could go wrong.

Unless both he and Deidara were executed.

* * *

A short distance behind the group, from a trunk of a particularly large tree, a face with two halves blinked. It looked like a venus fly-trap, but also a man.

It blinked again.

Then it was gone.

It had something to report.


	7. Smile

**Authoress' Note: **Thank you to everyone who took the time to read and review the last chapter. This one I am far more pleased with and I hope you all are too! Sasori's back to being harsh to others in this as well. I've found a useful way to turn his caring for Sakura into pain on others, LOL! Anywho, enjoy and please review once you've read it.

**Disclaimer:** I do not own 'Naruto' or anything associated with the manga or anime. This is purely fan-made, as I find it hardto believe that I would allow any of my favourite characters to die if I was the creator.

* * *

**A Broken Friendship**

**Chapter Seven: Smile**

Sakura felt confused. On the one hand, she was relieved that Sasori was still going to be her friend. On the other hand, she was slightly afraid of being friends with him. When they had met, she hadn't known a thing about him. The entire time that they spent together, Sakura had told Sasori more things about herself than she probably should have done. He was still in the Akatsuki back then, and if he had wanted to, he could have used the information against her or killed her. That knowledge frightened Sakura. What took away some of the fear was the comfort she felt at still being alive because Sasori didn't want her dead at all. He still wished to be her friend and he seemed to be trying his best as well.

True Sasori had lied to her, but Sakura knew that if he had told her he was in the Akatsuki, she would have turned against him instantly or fled in fear. She couldn't hate him for keeping necessary secrets.

They were still walking slowly back to the Sand village, a little wary about arriving there any quicker than they were doing. Gaara still had to think of a convincing excuse for Deidara and Sasori's presence when they arrived. Sakura hoped that he would come up with something soon. She wanted to talk to Sasori in private somewhere, so that Naruto wouldn't be angry with her for knowing the red-haired Akatsuki.

The forest was starting to thin out, signalling that the group would soon be leaving the foliage and would enter the open desert. There would be no cover if anyone were looking for signs of the rescue party.

Gaara was only a couple of feet in front of both her and Sasori, listening to a hyper Naruto talk about his new jutsu. They both seemed so distracted, Sakura didn't really think anyone would overhear if she talked to Sasori about anything. She had a few questions she needed to ask him, so she had to use the time they had now.

The rosette flicked her eyes to her side and she instantly caught the puppet master's attention. If she didn't know any better, she'd assume he had been looking at her the whole time.

"Sasori," she began slowly, "why are you leaving the Akatsuki?"

His dark eyes looked away from her curious gaze, a clear sign that he wasn't too comfortable with answering this question. Still, he tried, "I...no longer agree with what they do or what they plan to achieve."

His reply felt like a half-truth. Sakura knew there had to be more. She didn't want to pry into it too much though, in case she pushed too much and he changed his mind. She knew that his anger sometimes overrode everything else that he felt.

"That's good I guess." She smiled at him and it threw him off guard a bit. "I suppose you'll have plenty of free time to spend with me now?" He nodded, a little less nervous about answering her questions, but still unsure. "And don't worry Sasori, I'll help you learn how to be a really good friend!"

At that, Sasori smirked a little, "I thought that I only had to be myself?"

Sakura blushed slightly, embarrassed that he remembered that conversation and she had almost forgot. "Well, yeah, that helps...but I'll show you all the other things that friends do together. You'll still have all of that to learn after all."

He folded his arms, "And I suppose you are the best teacher for the task?" He acted skeptical, but Sakura could tell that he was teasing her.

"Cha! I'm the only person that will teach you! You're practically a lost cause Sasori." She grinned and the very corners of Sasori's lips twitched in what was his attempt at a smile. "See, you don't even smile properly. Come on! Smile Sasori."

* * *

Sasori was unsure. Very, very unsure. She wanted him to smile. He didn't do that. He wasn't even sure if he remembered how to smile. Would he look stupid if he tried and failed? He certainly didn't want her to laugh at him and he didn't want Deidara to notice him failing at anything.

"Sakura...I don't really see why I have to smi-"

Sakura's voice cut him off, "Oh come on Sasori! It's not that hard, is it? Just think of something that makes you happy and you'll smile."

"Fine." His voice deadpanned.

Sasori was perfectly aware that this was a huge mistake, but Sakura seemed to think otherwise. If it would make the grinning girl happy though...he would do it.

Something that made him happy, huh? There were many things, but he doubted that they would bring a pleasant smile to his face. Turning someone into a puppet made him happy, but it was more a sadistic happiness than the innocent kind that Sakura wished to see.

Seeing Sakura's face. That made him happy. It gave him a warm, fuzzy feeling in his heart. Knowing that she is safe and content also caused warmth to spread throughout his cold being.

Slowly, ever so slowly, a tiny smile crept forth onto Sasori's face. The sight of it made Sakura gasp and Sasori's smile faded instantly. Had he scared her in some way?

"Sakura? Are you...alright?"

"I'm fine. You just looked so...different when you smiled that I was surprised I guess."

Sasori saw her blush ever-so-slightly and he wondered if she might be ill. Surely it couldn't be healthy to turn another shade of colour so quickly in one day?

"You're sure? Your face looks a little flushed." Without thinking, Sasori lifted his hand and placed it on her forehead to check her temperature. It took him a moment or two to realise two things: one, they had both stopped walking and were currently holding the entire group up, with everyone staring at them; and two, his own temperature would be far too cold to truly tell whether Sakura's one was above normal.

"Um..." was all that Sakura could say, her face now as red as a tomato and clashing horribly with her hair colour.

Sasori swiftly removed his hand and looked at his feet. He had not embarrassed himself so openly like that in a long time. As if to make him feel worse, Deidara suddenly burst out into a fit of laughter and filled the whole silence with his amusement.

"You should see your faces, yeah! You look hilarious!"

* * *

Sakura was so embarrassed that her cheeks continued to burn even after ten minutes had gone by. Nobody had yet moved or said a word, except for Deidara's outburst and his loud, roaring laughter. Speaking of which...

"Stop laughing, it's not that funny! Sasori was just making sure I was not sick or anything. You don't have to be mean about it." The pink-haired girl glared hotly at Deidara, who slowed his laughing fit down to a quiet chuckle and eventually he stopped altogether.

The blonde man's blue eye glanced at his partner, who looked very uncomfortable and not at all happy with what he had been caught doing. With a sheepish grin, he tried to apologise in some way, "Er...sorry Sasori. You know me, I can't help it when someone looks stupid, yeah."

Sakura searched the others to find any traces of amusement, but nobody seemed to be on the brink of laughter. Kakashi was silently observing the exchange with a certain gleam in his eye – like he was putting pieces together and connecting the dots. Elder Chiyo looked very startled for reasons that Sakura still couldn't figure out. Gaara was just being Gaara, trying his best to ignore anything that was odd or peculiar to his eyes.

It was Naruto that worried Sakura the most though. He looked very confused and his expressive baby-blues seemed to be crying out to her in pain.

"S-Sakura...what..?"

She sighed heavily and prepared herself for the long story-telling that she would have to give to them all, "There's something I didn't tell you. I met Sasori before today. He's my friend, the one I mentioned while we were travelling."

Kakashi looked like he had been told a normal piece of news - calm and not all that surprised. "So he's the Sasori you told us about. It makes a little more sense now. Still, one thing's been bothering me Sakura. Just where did you find the time to befriend an Akatsuki?"

"Um...back when I was on that mission to scout the area far to the west of the Sand village."

Gaara decided to pay full attention to the conversation now, "The mission I had told you not to carry out you mean."

"Yeah..."

Silence. Nobody really knew what to say now. There wasn't anything to say anyway...

"How could you call an Akatsuki your friend Sakura? They're the enemies!"

...unless you're Naruto Uzumaki that is.

* * *

Sasori's hands clenched into tight fists at his sides. He hated the anger that the blonde boy in front of Sakura was displaying. He had no right to be angry with her at all. If she wanted to be friends with Sasori, that boy certainly shouldn't get in the way.

Sakura's distressed voice yelled back at her best friend, "I didn't know he was with the Akatsuki Naruto! How could I have? Nobody ever told me what they looked like! You all kept me in the dark!"

"You know now though! So why are you still his friend? He's a murderer Sakura! They all are!"

"That doesn't matter! He wants to quit, he told us so. Why do you have to be so stubborn?"

"What if it's a trick? He could be lying to you, to all of us! He could be using you Sakura!"

"He's not, Naruto. Why would he?" There were tears in Sakura's eyes that were spilling down her fragile face. She looked and sounded quite broken from only one argument with Naruto.

"He's the enemy, that's why!"

The boy had gone a little too far for Sasori's liking. Getting angry with Sakura was one thing; making her cry was another thing entirely. He hated when she cried because it ruined her face and made her bright eyes dull with despair.

With a speed that only Chiyo and Kakashi's more trained eyes could see, Sasori grabbed onto Naruto's throat and shoved the boy up against the nearest tree he could find. The blonde Leaf ninja was being suspended in the air ever-so-slightly, with his legs partly dangling in the air. He was gasping for air and grabbing onto Sasori's hand to try and pry the puppeteer's fingers from his neck.

Sasori wasn't exactly trying to kill the boy, but he wasn't being gentle with him either. He had to make sure that Naruto knew exactly what would happen to him if he ever made Sakura cry again.

Everyone else was standing a little ways away from the pair, not sure whether Naruto's life truly was in danger or not. Sakura's tears had stopped for the time being and her face had paled visibly.

"Listen closely, little boy," Sasori hissed with malice into Naruto's ear, "if you ever make Sakura cry again, I will maim you until there is nothing recognisable of your features. Do I make myself perfectly clear?"

He heard a faint "yes" from the boy and released him soon after. Naruto slumped to the floor and started hacking, coughing and gasping for breath.

Sasori barely even acknowledged his pain, as he turned to face the whole group and said matter-of-factly, "Sakura and I are friends. That's all you need to really know and that is all I will ever say on the matter. I am not going to betray her at all, so don't even think of accusing me like this brat has."

He calmly walked back to Sakura's side and took her gloved hand in his own, cold one, as if this act was a normal occurrence. He glared at Kakashi, "Shouldn't we be going now?"

The silver-haired Jonin simple nodded dumbly and went to retrieve the fallen boy, signalling to everyone to carry on walking without him.

When they had set off again, with Kakashi dragging an exhausted Naruto at the back of the group and Chiyo now at the front, Sakura smiled softly at Sasori, "Thank you Sasori, even though you were a bit extreme you know."

"He had to learn." Sasori truly smiled that time. "And...you're welcome, Sakura."


	8. Malice

Authoress' Note: Sorruy for the wait. Here's chapter eight. Sorry in advance if anyone is offended by swearing. It's not too extreme, but since a certain someone will be in this now, there has to be some or it would be really rubbish. Anywho, enjoy and please leave a review.

Disclaimer: I do not own 'Naruto' or anything associated with the manga or anime.

* * *

**A Broken Friendship**

**Chapter Eight: Malice**

The large and ominous gates of the Village Hidden in the Sand towered before the small group. Normally, they were never worried about entering the village, but with two wanted criminals in their party, they were a little concerned about what to expect.

Gaara was already having misgivings about bringing the pair of criminals to his village, since he only truly trusted one of them – Sasori. The other one, Deidara, had been his attacker and captor, thereby making Gaara less than thrilled about allowing him any freedom. Still, the young Kazekage always kept his word and he had promised that no harm would come to them.

With a heavy sigh the panda-eyed boy came to a decision about what should be done, "This is what will happen. Elder Chiyo, Kakashi and myself will enter the Sand village. The rest of you will wait by the gate – here – until we return. Any questions?"

Nobody said anything for a while, so Gaara took that as a no. He started to lead Chiyo and Kakashi through the large tunnel that acted as a gate, when Naruto's loud voice called out to him. He turned around, very aggravated and tired by now, and fixed the blonde boy with a glare, "Yes, Naruto?"

"Are you sure it's a good idea to leave a couple of Akatsuki," Sakura cleared her throat in annoyance and Naruto corrected his words, "a couple of ex-Akatsuki with just me and Sakura? What if they try something while you're away?"

"Naruto, I don't think they'll do anything that could get them into any more trouble now."

"But how do you know they won't?"

Gaara hesitated. He only had the word of the two that they would not do anything. He had been told that Deidara would go wherever Sasori went, but what of the puppeteer? His reasons were vague and a little confusing. He was difficult to read and the only evidence that Gaara could find to trust in the other red-haired ninja was one girl – Sakura Haruno. She seemed to trust in him completely and they did appear genuine with their friendship, however odd it was.

The child-Kazekage half-smiled at that little thought. It was amazing to find two completely opposite people from different worlds so close to each other. At the same time, Sakura and Sasori were the strangest pair that Gaara had ever come across in his short life. One loved helping and healing; the other enjoyed killing and maiming. Truly odd.

"Naruto, I trust them. Perhaps you should try it too. Sakura already does."

The boy flinched and Gaara turned back round to continue walking to his village, eager for rest and dreading the upcoming meeting he would be having with his council. He could already see the disapproving faces of old men, telling him that he was being foolish and irrational.

Gaara personally couldn't care less what they thought of his idea. They were the ones who put him in charge after all.

* * *

Sasori still held tightly to her hand. Sakura was very aware of this fact, along with how cold he felt through her glove. She had to keep reminding herself that he wasn't a normal person. That he was still alive and therefore she shouldn't be so worried all the time. Cold hands was normal for Sasori, so Sakura had no reason to 'go medic' on him at all.

A slight tug on her arm told the girl that her friend wanted her to start walking somewhere. Briefly, Sakura tuned in to her surroundings again and took note that he was leading her to the wall to stand by it.

Once they were there, Sakura decided that her feet ached a little so she began to sit down, and forgot that her hand was still being firmly held by Sasori's own hand, so he was pulled down with her rather clumsily.

The end result was a confused Sasori sprawled out on top of a very embarrassed Sakura. If the puppet master could blush, Sakura was positive that he'd be doing that right about now. His face was only a few inches away from her own. Sakura's own cheeks were bright red – the colour of Sasori's hair.

"Um..." was all that left Sakura's mouth, for the sheer proximity of Sasori was muddling up her thoughts. She couldn't even form coherent words. All she could do was stare into his perplexed and dark eyes.

To her relief – and mild disappointment that she didn't even want to think about – Sasori pulled off her slightly squished body and stood up, acting as though he hadn't just invaded Sakura's personal space and caused them both to become exceedingly flustered.

The puppet master straightened out his robe and then he held out one of his cold hands for the girl to take; the exact same hand that had recently caused Sakura's face to clash with her hair. She gulped and took it of course, but her face still remained dreadfully warm and crimson.

The moment she was on her feet, the puppeteer withdrew his hand and let it fall to his side, clearly unwilling to allow anything else to happen that shouldn't.

Sakura sighed in dismay; she actually enjoyed holding hands with him and deeply missed the activity now. Even though they were cold like a corpse, his hands were smooth and perfect instead of rough and scarred like most other people's hands. When he held her hand, Sakura could feel how secure his grip was, showing how afraid the guy was that she would leave him.

Sakura could never leave Sasori on his own. He seemed fragile, even though he was so powerful. She could guess that he had suffered some terrible pain and loss in his life, but he wasn't very forthcoming with the information. That was something else that she could add to her growing list of questions.

His smooth voice broke her thought process, "I'm...sorry for falling on you, Sakura. It was careless of me. I should have released your hand sooner."

"Don't be silly! It was an accident and it was more my fault than yours anyway." She took a tight hold of one of his hands – the same hand from before – and smiled serenely, "Besides, I like holding your hand. That way you can't run away from me again."

His face showed his confusion, something rare and shocking to see on a normally blank canvas.

Sakura had a victory at last – she was starting to understand his expressions.

* * *

Deidara was freaking out.

Not long ago – five minutes and twelve seconds to be exact – he had witnessed his master – for that was his most favoured term for Sasori – fall haphazardly onto the pink-haired beauty, Sakura. And both of them were clearly embarrassed, but neither of them had seemed capable of moving!

The explosives expert could handle his partner being friends with the girl. He could handle giving up the life he had come to know to be near the girl. What he could not get his mind around was the concept of Sasori having any kind of romantic attachments for said girl!

It was bizarre and extremely out of the blue.

Now 'pinky' was back to holding his master's hand and the puppeteer didn't seem to be all that bothered by it.

Something was definitely wrong and Deidara intended to get to the bottom of this can of worms before it opened up and ruined the both of them.

He heard a quiet curse come from the other blonde boy near him, so Deidara chose to ignore anything that might further disturb him and gave the boy his full attention.

"What's up with you, yeah?"

At first, Naruto could only blink. He probably didn't even realise that Deidara was talking to him and asking him a civil question. No tricks whatsoever. Slowly, his one-track mind started turning the wheels and cogs within its confines, and he tore his jealous gaze from Sakura and Sasori to look at Deidara.

"None of your business, Akatsuki."

Deidara's visible blue eye narrowed, "I've quit the Akatsuki, yeah. Or did your little brain forget that, yeah?"

The boy got right in Deidara's face then, trying to frighten the artist with his rage and height – even though he wasn't actually taller than Deidara, they were about the same size.

"What did you say?!"

"I called you stupid, yeah."

Both were now trying to kill the other person with their eyes and anger, but before either could say more or do anything at all, a fist connected with both their cheeks.

The blondes went soaring and landed some ten feet away in sand and dirt, most of which somehow worked its way into their mouths. The sat up – with some difficulty since they had landed with their hands in the sand and their legs in the air – and started hacking and coughing, trying to remove the taste of sand as quickly as possible. Naruto was the first to do so.

"Sakura! What did you do that for?!"

This was the moment when Deidara first witnessed Sakura's 'inner-self' come forth. The girl's entire aura promised a Universe of pain to Naruto, and Deidara felt mildly afraid for the young boy.

"NARUTO! WOULD YOU STOP BEING A MORON AND TRY TO GET ALONG WITH DEIDARA AND SASORI!? I'M SICK OF YOU TREATING THEM LIKE THE ENEMY, WHEN THEY'VE QUIT THE STUPID AKATSUKI NOW! GROW UP OR I'LL HIT YOU FURTHER NEXT TIME! GOT IT!?"

The boy was as white as a sheet, and so was Deidara.

"Y-Yes...S-Sakura..."

Pinky turned back into her happy persona as soon as she heard that answer, swiftly turning on her heels and skipping back to Sasori, who didn't seem all that worried or bothered with her mood-swings at all.

"She's s-scary, yeah..."

The blonde boy just nodded in agreement.

* * *

Gaara was getting tired of this meeting. He'd called the council members all together as soon as he was back in the building. They'd all fussed over his state, saying that they thought he'd be dead and that they were glad that he was alive. Gaara was pretty certain that they only cared because it saved them the trouble of instating a new Kazekage again.

He still had yet to explain the situation though. They wouldn't stop congratulating Kakashi and Chiyo in their rescue mission. Someone had to say something soon to shut them up, or Gaara was afraid that he'd resort to silencing them with a very loud shout of some kind, even though his throat was sore and ached from lack of water.

Luckily for the boy, silence settled among the council as soon as the door facing him burst open and Temari rushed into the room yelling his name. She had tears in her eyes and a warm smile on her face; Gaara could tell that his sister had been so worried about him, unlike the old men in the room.

The blonde woman strode round the table and reached his seat. Gaara didn't know what to expect next, until he was being crushed in a strong hug from his older sister. He gasped for air and she meekly apologised, letting him go and moving away to let the young man breath.

"I'm glad you're okay." Temari said, wiping the last few tears from her eyes.

"I wouldn't be fine at all if something unexpected hadn't happened."

One of the council spoke up, "Yes, it was lucky that Team Kakashi was there to save you, Lord Kazekage."

"I'm not talking about the rescue team." Murmurs of confusion arose from the table. "I was referring to something else." He took a deep breath and then proceeded to explain, "The two Akatsuki that were involved in this incident let me go."

Temari blinked in bewilderment, "Why would they do that Gaara?"

"They let me go, because they no longer wish to be part of the Akatsuki. They quit that organisation and furthermore, they have agreed to give us any and all information they have on the group. All they ask for is protection and a guarantee that no harm or danger will come to either of them. They also request this of the Leaf village, so I will have Team Kakashi return to their home with the message."

The uproar of protests was Gaara's only answer from the men, so he simply blocked their words out and leaned back in his chair, tired and drained from the past day's strange events. Never in a million years would he have ever seen himself trying to defend a pair of wanted criminals, formerly in the Akatsuki. Yet here he was, doing just that.

This meeting really was going to last forever at the rate it was going.

He had a feeling Temari, Kakashi Hatake and Elder Chiyo felt the same way.

* * *

Two dark, twisted figures trudged through the rainy fields of Rain. The only protection they had from the harsh water droplets pelting down from above were straw hats, not created for heavy downpours at all.

Out of the two of them, only one thing truly distinguished them apart.

One of them carried a scythe.

"I hate the fucking rain, Kakuzu!" the one with the scythe complained.

The other one, known as Kakuzu merely ignore the comment, as it was entirely normal and something that his partner said quite a lot. He despised needless words and he despised his travel companion immensely.

They had a job to do. One that would ensure that Kakuzu was paid handsomely for his troubles, so he would put up with his scythe-wielding partner for the time being.

"I can't believe we have to go collect the rings from those two! I won't be able to offer the puppet to Lord Jashin because the stupid bastard's body isn't a proper one! Why couldn't someone else go?"

Kakuzu fixed his partner with a deadly glare from beneath the white material that framed the hat and hid his face, "I'm sick of hearing about your pathetic 'God', Hidan. Stop complaining and shut up. There's still the other one you can give to your precious Jashin."

Hidan made a face at that and stopped talking, although he so wanted to piss Kakuzu off a little more. He'd love to kill the money-obsessed man, but he still had to go through the annoying mission.

They had orders from their leader to kill the traitors and bring their rings back.

And they were only three days away from the Sand village.


	9. Patience

**Disclaimer:** I do not own 'Naruto' or anything associated with the manga or anime. Please do not sue.

**Authoress' Note:** I did this chapter, at last. Took two days to think of the idea for it and a further two to get it fully typed up. Do you guys actually know how difficult it is to keep writing for a Naruto story when I keep thinking of Bleach things?! It's awful...sigh. Anywho. The title has some fun irony, since Sasori doesn't HAVE patience. Yet he must try to find some here, hehehe... Please don't be offended by any swearing that you see. Hidan likes to run away at the mouth and well, he's in this now so I have to keep him in character. For that, there must be swearing when he's annoyed or angry. Which he shall be.

ENJOY!

Also, thank you to my reviewers! I love you guys! Hugs to you all!! Please leave a review at the end of the chapter to let me know your thoughts and whether you actually like where I'm taking the story. If you don't like it, then you can tell me and I won't be offended.

* * *

**A Broken Friendship**

**Chapter Nine: Patience**

It'd been well over an hour since Gaara and the others had gone to talk with the council in the Sand village, yet still there was no word. Sakura was getting a little nervous. She couldn't understand what could hold them up. Gaara must have explained everything to the council, so why was he taking so long? Sakura just didn't know and she was worried that the outcome would be anything but good.

After the embarrassing incident earlier, Sakura had made sure to ask Sasori first if she could sit down. Now they were both sitting next to each other, with the large wall that acted as the gates of Sand behind them.

Honestly, the pink-haired ninja had never been in such an odd situation. She was still trying to get her mind around the fact that it was only a few hours ago that Sasori had been in the Akatsuki and also her friend. Now he was just her friend. Well, he was also still a criminal if Gaara couldn't convince the council members to agree to the terms they were given.

To her right she could see Sasori's partner, Deidara, sitting down a few metres from where she was and playing with some of his clay. He acted like such a child compared to Sasori, that Sakura was hard-pressed not to put the blonde artist in the same category as her best friend, Naruto. Both were immature and seemed to be fairly similar with their temperament.

A look to her far left, and she saw Naruto sulking and making a big deal about Sakura's closeness with Sasori. She could tell that he was confused and angry and probably even a little jealous. Sakura had always known that Naruto liked her – as more than a friend – but she didn't really see him as that. He was her best friend. That's what Naruto was to Sakura.

Now that Sakura thought about it, what was Sasori to her? She kept telling everyone that he was her friend, but only a few minutes ago, they had been close enough to kiss! For some reason, she wasn't too unhappy about that prospect, but she honestly didn't think that they would ever do that anyway. Sakura just wanted to be friends with Sasori. At least, that's what she had been trying to convince herself of for a long time now.

The poor girl had to get her mind onto a different subject soon, before she started to actually listen to her traitorous heart!

* * *

Sasori was almost completely in his own world. He was just staring ahead and he wasn't really paying attention to anything on the outside; rather, he was more focused on his thoughts that were swimming rapidly through his mind. Thoughts that he hadn't ever had before, thoughts about almost kissing Sakura and being angry with himself for not doing it at the time.

His logic told him it was stupid to even consider doing anything like that to the girl. She was normal, while he was anything but normal. His heart – which did exist, but he still tried to deny – wanted to kiss Sakura, but knew that he had no right to. He was so against the idea, yet a small part of him wondered what would happen if he had actually gone through with it.

He couldn't though. He was not even going to try to go through with actually kissing the girl. He'd settle for being her friend over the stupidity of such an act any day. In fact, he'd much prefer being her friend than anything else!

His mind started to clear when he came to that comfortable conclusion and he at last allowed what was going on around him to become part of his senses again. Sasori's first awareness of Sakura talking to him was at that moment and he felt like such a fool for blocking her gentle voice out. He didn't even try to analyse why his mind had referred to Sakura's voice as gentle; he just needed to pick up what she was saying.

"...and then Naruto fell into a thorn bush! It was so funny! He was covered in bandages for a couple of days afterwards and Ino thought he was a mummy and ran for it!" Sakura started to laugh, so Sasori assumed that she was telling a humorous story about something or other. He still couldn't work out what she was saying though.

Apparently, Sakura had noticed that Sasori hadn't been listening to her at all, so she sighed and poked him in the arm. He blinked slowly, confused even further by the pink-haired being next to him.

"Why did you poke me Sakura?"

"Because you weren't listening to me! What was so important that you couldn't even pretend to listen?"

"I was just...thinking." That seemed like a lame and pathetic answer, even to the puppeteer.

"'Thinking' huh? What about?"

He faltered a little. It wasn't as though he could tell Sakura that he was thinking about almost kissing her!

"Well? What was it Sasori?"

"I...er..." She was getting angry, he could see as much, but she also seemed a little disappointed. About what, he didn't know.

Eventually, after much staring and waiting, Sakura huffed and looked away from the red-head. "Fine, if you don't want to tell me then it doesn't matter. I'd just like you to trust me Sasori. Tell me things, sometimes..." She was upset and hurt.

Sasori frowned and pulled her face back around to face his own – not too roughly though. His hand dropped to his side once again and he let his frown fade from his face, leaving it blank once again except for the faint sign of apology in his eyes.

"It doesn't really matter. It wasn't that important." Her aura still radiated anger and hurt, so Sasori tried a little harder to make it up to Sakura, without actually saying 'sorry'. "If you want me to tell you things, things about myself, then you can ask me. In fact, ask me anything you want to right now." He moved away from her a little bit and waited for the questions to start coming. He knew they would.

* * *

Anything.

She could ask Sasori absolutely anything and he'd answer her.

Sakura smiled with delight and blurted out the first thing that came to mind, "Do you miss eating food?"

It was a stupid question, and at any other time Sakura would have thought over the questions more carefully beforehand. However, she had asked him and now she had to watch as his face shifted from blank to baffled to...amused. He found her funny!

"When I gave you the offer to ask me anything, I wasn't expecting that." He chuckled and Sakura nearly stopped breathing. His laugh wasn't anything grand or spectacular, but at the very least she could tell it was full of nothing but mirth. It wasn't cruel laughter or fake either. It was warm and pleasant, like a normal person's laugh.

He had laughed before, back when they were in that Darkness forest, but for some reason she felt a different reaction to it now. Just like before, when she'd asked him to smile, her expression turned to shock and wonderment.

* * *

Sasori noticed her shocked expression and how her face had paled and instantly stopped his laughter. His eyes shone with concern and he moved a little closer to her to make doubly sure that she wasn't ill. The last time that this had happened was when he had tried to smile. Now, when he accidentally let out a small chuckle, she seemed to be equally unwell. Was his happiness causing her to be sick? Perhaps he shouldn't smile or laugh ever again?

"Sakura? Are you...alright?"

At once the colour returned to her features, although her cheeks were slightly redder than normal - just like before.

"I'm fine! I just didn't expect you to laugh, that's all! I can't help it if I wasn't thinking when I said that Sasori, so you didn't need to laugh!"

She wasn't angry, not one bit. In fact, Sasori could tell that she was happy and definitely healthy, so he decided that never laughing or smiling again wouldn't be the smartest thing he'd ever done.

"I suppose your question was just so silly that I couldn't help laughing at you Sakura. It certainly wouldn't be the first thing I'd ask if I were you."

He smirked and she pouted. That was something Sasori had noticed during his time with Sakura – whenever he did something he liked, she would get annoyed or embarrassed. The same could be said the other way around too.

"And in answer to your question, Sakura, I don't miss food. It was boring back then and I'm sure it's the same way now."

* * *

At least he had answered her, even if he had mocked her at the same time. Sakura needed to think of a sensible question to ask him, maybe one of the ones from her list?

"Okay, I'll try to ask more serious ones now. I don't want to make a complete idiot of myself after all." She tapped her chin in thought and allowed her mind to drift back to the things that had always puzzled her about Sasori. A few had been answered when she discovered he that he was in the Akatsuki, but there were still a lot of unsolved mysteries.

"Take your time; it looks like we'll be waiting for a lot longer than I would've liked. I hate waiting..."

Sakura stuck her tongue out at him. "You just need to be more patient. Good things come to those who wait after all."

"So I'm told. Are you going to ask me questions sometime this century?"

"Ha-ha...it just so happens that I have my next question for you Sasori."

He closed his eyes and waited for her to continue.

"Why did you join the Akatsuki?"

"Do you really want to know?"

"Yeah, that's why I asked."

* * *

She made it sound like the answer would be a simple one to give.

Why indeed?

Sasori couldn't really remember what had driven him to join such an organisation, but he had and that was that. He wasn't a part of the Akatsuki anymore, so he never really thought that Sakura would ask that question.

He opened his eyes and looked into Sakura's own curious ones. "I don't remember why I joined."

"Oh..."

Sasori tried to explain his answer a little further, even though he wasn't completely positive about what he wanted to say. "It could have been any number of reasons why I joined them, Sakura. It was a long time ago and I don't think the same as I used to anymore. The important thing is that I won't be going back to them even if this plan fails."

"Alright Sasori, I understand. I was just curious after all."

She smiled warmly at Sasori and he felt that she was satisfied with his answer.

"So...what else do you want to ask me Sakura?"

* * *

The council had made their decision. Not that their opinions would actually change Gaara's in the slightest. Even if the answer was a resounding no from each of them, Gaara would simply allow the two ex-Akatsuki to come and go as they please, council be damned. He was the Kazekage, not them.

The mumbling amongst the men subsided and then one of them spoke for the group, "We have discussed the terms of this agreement and we have chosen to..." There was a pause and Gaara leaned forwards slightly, eager to hear what the old men had decided. "...accept the agreement. However, we suggest that the two criminals be confined for a week and monitored during that time to see where their loyalties lie. If you do not agree with this request, then we will not accept the two Akatsuki at all."

Gaara sighed heavily, a large headache starting to form in his head. He truly didn't want to confine Sasori for a whole week when he had proven to be loyal to at least Sakura Haruno. He wasn't entirely convinced that Deidara would remain loyal to his partner, but he had to at least give him the benefit of the doubt.

The confinement would have to be carried out. Gaara really didn't want to cause any arguments amongst the village. If Sasori and Deidara really wanted to be accepted and able to walk free, they would have to agree to the new terms as well.

"Very well, I will allow them to be confined and monitored for a week." Gaara turned to Kakashi, who was leaning against the wall behind him and reading Icha Icha Tactics. "Kakashi Hatake, can you go and inform them of this and escort them to this building?"

The Jonin nodded and vanished in a quick 'poof!' of grey smoke.

* * *

Kakashi reappeared in front of the four bored ninja, startling Naruto and Deidara.

"Kakashi-sensei! Don't DO that!" Naruto was clutching his chest, where his heart was, trying to calm the rapid beating down to normal.

"Warn us next time, yeah!" snapped an equally freaked Deidara.

Kakashi simply smiled – although you really couldn't tell with the mask there – and turned his full attention to Sasori, who was no longer talking with Sakura.

"The council finally made their decision."

When he didn't elaborate any further, Sasori decided to prompt the silver-haired man. He hated to wait after all and he had waited a long time already. "And?"

"...They want you both to spend a week in confinement, while they monitor you to make sure you are really telling the truth."

Deidara stood up quickly and yelled out loud, "No way! We're not getting locked up for a week, yeah! Right Sasori?"

"We'll do it. It's only for a week."

"That's good to hear. Gaara wants everyone to go to the Kazekage's building, so we should probably leave now."

Sasori and Sakura stood up slowly and followed Kakashi and Naruto as they walked through the large walls. Deidara stood still for a couple of minutes longer, genuinely confused and very angry.

If he chose to go back to the Akatsuki, he wouldn't have a better chance to do so than right at that moment. Part of him was very sickened with the whole arrangement, but the much larger part of the blonde ninja was almost relieved to at last have some kind of guaranteed freedom. After the coming week, he'd not have to do anything else that people ordered him to do. He'd be free. No more looking for stupid demons. No more pointless spying missions.

"It's only a week..."

With a resigned sigh, the blonde stepped through the large gap in between the walls and followed the other four ninja.

* * *

"Fuck!"

That was the tenth time that Hidan had managed to step on something sharp in the sand. It wasn't like it was his fault that he couldn't see any of the things! Of course, Kakuzu had not stepped on anything at all. He was perfectly fine.

They'd only been walking for about two hours in the desert, but Hidan had quickly decided that he hated the place and never wanted to come back ever again.

"Oi, Kakuzu, why aren't you stepping on any of this crap?!"

The bounty hunter gave no response, but that never deterred the Jashin worshipper before and it wasn't about to now either.

"Kakuzu, did you hear me? Or have you gone deaf?"

"I heard you idiot," came the low rumble from Kakuzu, "I was just ignoring you because I'm sick of your whining."

"Tch, whatever. So why the fuck aren't you standing on any of that crap? It keeps happening to me – FUCK!"

He'd just stepped on another sharp...thing...in the sand. It just wasn't Hidan's day.

Kakuzu's rough, grating voice came from in front of the silver-haired man, "Only idiots and small-minded animals get caught by the sharp stones. I'm still deciding which one you are."

Hidan couldn't think of a comeback to that insult, so he just settled for a quiet, "Bastard!" and left it at that.

They were still about three days away from their destination and Hidan figured he'd need to pay more attention on his footing and less attention on working up his money-obsessed partner.

After the mission however...he could annoy him all he wanted!

A gleeful smile spread across his face and he completely missed the very obvious stone poking out of the pale sand. His toe stubbed against it. "Damn it!" He began hopping about on his good foot, cradling the other one and cursing with every colourful word he could think of.

His partner didn't even bother to look back as he kept at the pace he had started at.

They DID have a mission to finish after all.


	10. Truth

**Authoress' Note:**_** Well, this is the shortest chapter for this story. I promise they won't be this short in future. I just don't like this chapter because it's not that interesting and is only like a bridge to the next part. In the next chapter things will get more interesting and I guarantee that you'll all laugh at least once. heheh...**_

_**Anywho, all reviews are welcome. I even accept negative ones, so long as you can back up why you dislike things. I'll get started on chapter 11 in a few minutes to please you all!**_

_**Thank you to all who reviewed! I was well pleased when I checked the last chapter and found FIVE reviews! O.O Really made my day! Huggles to you special reviewers!**_

**Disclaimer:**_** I do not own 'Naruto' or anything associated with the manga or anime. For goodness sake! If I did don't you think I'd have NOT killed off such brilliant characters like Sasori and Deidara?! They're pretty...**_

* * *

**A Broken Friendship**

**Chapter Ten: Truth**

The normally short walk to Gaara's office seemed to last for far too long in Sasori's opinion. He really didn't like to make someone else wait, but the group had travelled so slowly from the gates to the Kazekage's building that when they finally made it into the office, nightfall had descended upon the sandy village.

His patience was wearing thin. He wanted to get all of this over with quickly so that he could be free to leave and proceed to the Leaf village with Sakura. He also had a feeling that they wouldn't be free of the Akatsuki for too long. After all, when Orochimaru had fled from the organisation he had been pursued relentlessly. He still was today as a matter of fact.

The all stepped into the small office that belonged to the Kazekage and stood in a line facing the desk, behind which sat Gaara with a tired expression on his face. Sasori supposed that this entire ordeal must have been a little too much at once for the boy leader, but he was far too irked to care anymore.

"What took you all so long? It's already eight o'clock at night."

Kakashi Hatake rubbed a hand behind his head in embarrassment and used a rather poor excuse – at least by Sasori's standards.

"We must have gotten lost on the way."

It was fair to say that Gaara did not appear amused at all. This wasn't the time for the Jonin to be making jokes about anything or wasting time.

"See that it doesn't happen again Kakashi." Gaara stood up from his chair and looked from Sasori to Deidara, as if assessing who would be best to address. Eventually he settled on talking to the entire group and began, "Kakashi no doubt informed you of the change in the situation. Starting from tonight, and for the next five days, both Sasori and Deidara will be confined to a single room with no windows and only one door. There will always be a guard outside the door and there will also be a camera to monitor what goes on from within the room itself. You will not be allowed any visitors, unfortunately. Your weapons will need to be removed for the duration of the confinement, but if you can convince the council of your intentions you'll get them back at the end. Any questions?"

Deidara was sulking – everyone with eyes could see that. Sasori on the other hand was mentally preparing himself for the next surprise that he'd have to give everyone in the room – with the exception of Deidara and Sakura of course.

He cleared his throat and slowly said, "It would not be possible for me to remove all of my weapons, for I myself am a weapon."

The initial reaction was a collective silence – with Deidara's normal snickering when he picked up on some humour that nobody else could. It was quite irritating for Sasori to have to explain exactly what he meant, but from Gaara's next words he was fairly certain that he'd be doing it frequently with everything he said.

"I'm not sure I understand what you mean Sasori."

The tone was the same, but Sasori could detect confusion that the young Kazekage tried to mask.

Sighing – more out of annoyance than anything else – Sasori undid the buttons on his Akatsuki cloak and let it slide down so everyone could see his point. He was a living puppet, therefore a weapon.

"Now do you understand?"

If it wasn't for the gasp and the startled "S-Sasori!" that came from an elderly voice behind him, Sasori would not have known that his own grandmother had been standing in the office the whole time.

* * *

Sakura turned around when everyone else did, to find Elder Chiyo staring at Sasori with a ghostly white expression plastered on her worn face. That was fairly confusing for the pink-haired girl. She reckoned that anyone would be slightly freaked that the puppeteer was also a pseudo-puppet himself, but she wasn't honestly expecting Chiyo of all people to be so affected by the news.

That's when it occurred to the young woman that Chiyo might be linked in some way to her friend. She was old and Sasori had lived at least 20 years in that form. At some point he must have known Chiyo from this village, because they both lived there. Her silence from before had also baffled Sakura, but she had been so wrapped up in everything else that she had barely noticed the woman's strange behaviour.

"S-Sasori, why did you d-do this to yourself?"

There was so much confusion and pain in the woman's voice that Sakura thought she might start to cry. It was like a great dam had burst forth from within the Elder's soul and all of her emotions had erupted in that one question. Why indeed.

"Grandma Chiyo, why are you so surprised?"

Sakura's mind abruptly halted. She didn't hear anything going on around her anymore; the entire conversation that was being carried out between Sasori and Chiyo didn't even reach her ears. GRANDMA!? He had family?! Sakura didn't know this at all. He never mentioned her and he didn't even acknowledge the old woman when the group had gone to save Gaara. He had simply been focused on Sakura.

She didn't know anything about Sasori at all. Nothing. Just the obvious things that anyone could find out. Nothing to do with his family, his old life or even where he had learnt to use puppets. She was an idiot. She trusted someone she knew nothing about.

She tuned back in eventually when the conversation was quickly cut short by Sasori's angry, "If you're so desperate to know I'll tell you later!"

He seemed to be so angry that Sakura was afraid of him for just a moment. If he could get that angry talking to a family member, she'd hate to see him blow his stack around total strangers. Or her too.

Luckily for everyone present – for if Sasori had gotten any worse there'd be bloodshed – Gaara brought their attention back to the real topic at hand.

"You can both argue later. Right now, I need to have your word Sasori that you will not attempt anything traitorous by using your body for a weapon during confinement."

Sasori reigned in his anger and looked calmly at the Kazekage. "You have my word, Lord Kazekage. I will not do something so foolish."

Gaara nodded his head. "That was all I really needed to talk about with you. There's just one more thing that needs to be said before the confinement period begins. Team Kakashi, when will you be leaving to inform the Hokage?"

Kakashi sighed - and Sakura took that as a signal that she would not be happy with what he said. "We will be leaving first thing in the morning. The sooner we let the Hokage know the situation, the sooner she can come to terms with it and work something out. It's unusual for me to be so quick to do something – I normally try to be as late with everything as I possibly can – but this news really can't be delayed."

Gaara accepted that and started to inform every one of the sleeping arrangements, while inside Sakura's soul she was freaking out. She couldn't possibly leave so soon! She needed to be there when Sasori was out of confinement so that she could congratulate him and then show the duo to the Leaf village. If she went in the morning, she'd never be able to do any of that.

"P-Please! Let me stay Kakashi-sensei!" She was desperate, and it came through clearly in her words.

The silver-haired Jonin seemed to hesitate, and Sasori snatched up the opportunity he was presented with. "I would also like for Sakura to remain in this village. It would be more preferable for me to see a friendly face when I am released from the confinement."

In other words, if Sakura went then Sasori would not co-operate.

Gaara sat back down heavily in his large chair, clearly not really interested in having any kind of debate over so small a matter. "Sakura can stay if she wishes to. It wouldn't exactly be a bother to me if she did or not. She's not a burden."

"Thanks Gaara! Erm...I mean...Lord Kazekage."

He waved his hand in a dismissive gesture and everyone dispersed from the little office in mixtures of wonder, joy and sorrow.

Sakura nudged something with her foot on her way out and looked down. It was Sasori's cloak! She picked it up carefully and dashed off after the puppet master and his partner to give it back to him. The pair were already a good distance away from everyone else, being escorted by four Sand Jonin to the room they would remain in for five days.

"Sasori!"

He stopped instantly – even as the Jonin walking behind him tried to push him forwards – and looked over his shoulder to see Sakura sprinting down the hallway with his Akatsuki cloak in her arms.

When she caught up, she bent over to catch her breath and then beamed at him brilliantly. "You forgot this."

He carefully took the folded robe from her and started to put it on. All the while, Sakura was having a strange sense of deja vu.

"It's kind of like that time I gave you your cloak back in that forest, isn't it Sasori?"

He blinked, perhaps perplexed that the girl would even recall such a time when he sometimes tried to suppress those days. It had not been his most chivalrous moment when he had tried to strangle her to death.

Eventually he found his voice amongst his musings. "At least the situation is not so dangerous now."

"True, but there isn't exactly hundreds of evil ninja trying to kill us anymore."

She giggled a little bit – although even she didn't know how her own words could be so humorous. Sasori's lips twitched slightly, letting the young Leaf ninja know that he was amused as well.

A cleared throat from one of the Jonin caused Sakura to remember where she was, and she blushed heavily. "Sorry! Carry on! I'll go now. See you in five days Sasori! You too Deidara!" And Sakura was off back the way she had come, heading for the exit of the building.

She could just barely make out a mocking laugh from the blonde explosives expert, most likely because she'd been blushing as red as her top.

It didn't bother Sakura though. She was pleased that finally things would be going okay in her life. Even if she still had a LOT of questions to ask Sasori when he was free once again.


	11. Love

Authoress' Note: This took me a few hours to do. I started it the other night and managed a page before I slept. Then I did the other 10 and a half pages from 11 pm all the way to 4 am. So...it's a long chapter. But it couldn't really be cut and I couldn't stop typing once I started lol! Don't expect other chapters to be this long by the way. This is special. Hope you all enjoy!

And thank you to all who reviewed the last chapter! Uber huggles you! Please take the time to review this chapter, as I spent my time typing it for you all.

Disclaimer: I do not own 'Naruto' or anything associated with the manga or anime. It's a FANfiction, not FACT.

* * *

**A Broken Friendship**

**Chapter Eleven: Love**

_Day of Confinement: 1_

The first day of being inside the prison-like room dawned and Sasori remained lying down on his bed. He'd purposely picked the one nearest the door so that if Deidara started to go mad, he could stop him from attempting to escape. That being said, if Sasori himself went a little nutty while confined, nobody would be able to stop him.

The room was sparsely furnished, with only a small corner sectioned off with a cubicle so that Deidara could go to the toilet. They both had small futons that acted as beds – even if Sasori couldn't figure out why he would need one. It wasn't as though he slept or did anything normal these days.

Deidara's bed was on the side of the room opposite the door, whilst Sasori's was right next to it. For the moment Deidara was sleeping soundly, with the occasional snore and wheeze. It would have been funny for anyone that was not Sasori. He had witnessed this strange phenomenon so many times in his life that it no longer phased him. He imagined that Sakura would probably say the blonde was 'cute' or something.

The puppeteer sighed and rolled over onto his back, with his arms behind his head to prop it up. He'd never felt so bored before. He wasn't even permitted to practice his puppet manipulation jutsu while confined. Not even on a small mannequin! He couldn't really start complaining though, since he had agreed without hesitating.

He was doing this to be free. Free to travel around and go to the Leaf village, to see Sakura everyday. It was for her.

All for Sakura.

* * *

Deidara's eyes cracked open and he lazily rubbed the sleep from them with his remaining hand. He still couldn't believe he had lost his left arm. It didn't really hurt or anything. He was used to pain so he barely noticed it at all. He just hated a piece of his body being missing. It was gone. His hand was gone and with it a piece of his jutsu. He couldn't create his clay bombs as effectively with only one hand. It wouldn't be easy and he doubted he'd be able to make that special of his ever again.

"No use crying about it, yeah." He mumbled to himself as he sat up slowly and started to pick up the band he tied his hair up with.

The blonde fumbled about a bit with the band – since he only had one hand – but he eventually put up a piece of his long locks with it. Next he slipped his scratched head protector under part of his fringe and above his eyes. When he was satisfied with his appearance – not that he had a mirror to check of course – he twisted around and faced his partner, who was sitting up right and staring at Deidara strangely.

"What? You've seen me do that a thousand times before now, yeah." Deidara said a bit too defensively.

Sasori, still quite wide-eyed, looked away from the blonde man and tried not to look at him anymore. "It just looked...strange when you did that with just your right arm." The red-haired man turned back to face Deidara, a smirk now adorning his features. "It was funny though."

"It wasn't funny, yeah! I can't help it if I don't have my other arm! It was 'removed' from me while I was doing the mission that we didn't even finish anyway, yeah!"

"Fine, fine I won't make fun of you anymore. I'm not really in the mood to now. I'm bored."

The blonde man grinned and practically jumped on the fun he could have with that simple revelation. Sasori was bored, which mean that Deidara could tease him about Sakura!

"Well, it must get boring when there isn't a pretty girl holding your hand and falling all over you, yeah."

A few minutes passed by in total silence. Sasori hadn't responded to Deidara's comment. The blonde shifted his blue eyes to where his partner was sitting and tried to read the blank expression that coated all of the puppet master's face. He couldn't.

"Er...Sasori..?"

* * *

It wasn't that the red-haired man was angry with Deidara's comment. It was the fact that the words the blonde had spoken struck some chord within his being. He really was bored because Sakura wasn't around.

"Deidara..."

"...what, yeah?" The artist was nervous, Sasori could tell. He most likely expected to be yelled at, threatened or hurt.

"...You're right. It is boring without Sakura here."

Sasori looked at his partner and their eyes met briefly. Then the blonde man started to laugh! He rolled over on his futon and laughed so hard there were tears in his eyes.

"Why are you laughing?"

He steadied himself and wiped the tears from the corners of his deep blue eyes. "I'm sorry, yeah. It's just so funny! You really like pinky, don't you? You probably love her!"

Sasori shifted uncomfortably. "I don't love Sakura! We're just friends you idiot!"

The grin seemed to be permanent on Deidara's face as he looked at Sasori. He was far too amused by this revelation that only he knew of, that probably nothing could ever be capable of bringing his good mood down.

"Look on the bright side, yeah. At least you can hold hands with your new girlfriend and hug her." He waved his right hand around and showed off its mouth. "What girl would ever want to hold my hand, yeah? And I've only got one arm now, so hugging wouldn't be happening either."

"She's not my girlfriend, you idiot! Sakura is just my FRIEND."

Deidara's grin slipped from his face slightly when he realised that perhaps his partner just didn't know he was in love with the pink-haired girl from the Leaf village. It was plain as day to the ex-Stone ninja.

* * *

Lunch times for Sakura were always so boring, especially now that she had nobody to spend them with. It was only the first day of Sasori's confinement, but she missed him more than she did when he was gone for a couple of weeks. It was weird how that worked.

She was strolling through the streets of the Sand village, looking for somewhere to eat some tasty food, when she spotted Temari up ahead. She sprinted to the older woman and poked her in the arm to get her attention.

Temari's face lit up when she noticed Sakura and she smiled. "What are you doing here Sakura? Hungry are you?"

The pink-haired ninja nodded a 'yes' and Temari motioned for her to follow.

The pair walked down the crowded street and turned right down an alleyway. At the end of the enclosed alleyway was a small restaurant. The delicious aroma of freshly cooked noodles wafted towards them both and Sakura immediately ran to the entrance to get closer to the smell.

Temari chuckled and followed after Sakura as the Leaf girl walked through the open door. "Easy now. It's just a simple noodle restaurant, where they serve all kinds of meals like ramen and tsukemen. Things like that."

"That's fine with me! I'm starving!"

The girls were seated at a small table and their orders were taken. Sakura sat gleefully in her seat as she waited for the food to arrive. Within ten minutes their orders came back to them and Temari had to watch a little fearfully as Sakura practically devoured her meal. She hadn't been kidding when she said she'd been starving.

They ate in comfortable silence and when they finished they paid for their meals and left the little restaurant. That's when Sakura's gloomier mood started to crop back up again. Her smile vanished and worry lined her features.

"What's up Sakura?"

"I guess I just miss..." She trailed off, but Temari easily picked up on what she was saying.

"You miss Sasori, right?" The younger girl nodded her head. "It's only the first day Sakura. You need to stop worrying so much. He'll be fine and when the five days are up you'll see him again."

Sakura sighed. "You're right Temari. I need to stop getting so depressed. It's not like me at all."

"Maybe you just need to do something constructive with your time to keep you occupied then? I'll see if I can find something for you to do. Don't worry Sakura." Temari pat the miserable girl on the back and then took off down the street, presumably to go to the Kazekage's building and ask Gaara for some help.

"I'm soooo bored without Sasori..."

* * *

_Day of Confinement: 2_

This day passed by for the duo in almost complete silence. Deidara had decided not to tease Sasori for the time being, since the previous day had been so pointless. All he'd managed to do was piss of the puppeteer to the point that he refused to respond to anything Deidara said.

Meanwhile, Sasori had taken to pondering over his feelings for Sakura. Did he only like her, or was it love? He had to remind himself of exactly what 'love' felt like, but he could only just recall his own feelings for his family. That was a different kind of love, he knew that at least. Then he analysed his feelings towards Deidara – who he considered a friend to a certain degree – but his feelings for Sakura were not like the ones he held for the blonde man. They were much stronger and didn't feel quite the same.

Was that love?

He honestly didn't know, but the large debate going through his mind about whether it was or wasn't love overrode everything else going on – including all forms of communication from Deidara.

* * *

It was nightfall when Kakuzu and Hidan finally made it to the Sand village's large walls. Once again, there were no guards present so the pair didn't have to worry about being seen – yet. The only sounds were the loud voices of the villagers that were walking around within the village itself. It wasn't even late into the evening, so many people were shopping, having fun or just taking a walk for exercise.

Just before Hidan could take another step towards the gap in the walls, a plant-like man melted out of the wall next to him. He jumped – a little bit afraid.

"What the fuck?! Don't do that you freak!"

The man didn't even bother to respond to Hidan. He simply walked towards Kakuzu and spoke to him alone. "The traitors are currently being held in a room. They've been there for almost two days. They will be out in three days time, so Leader has given orders for you to attack them once they are out and on the move again." Kakuzu nodded in understanding and the man continued the orders, "Do not cause a scene and only go after those two. The best chance will be when they leave this village and head to the Leaf village. For now you will need to wait three more days, so Leader has ordered that you both must wear these cloaks..." Zetsu – for that was the plant-man's name – pulled out of his own Akatsuki robe two light brown cloaks. "...and you are to blend in with the villagers until then."

Zetsu moved back to the wall and melted inside it once more. When Hidan was completely sure that the man was gone, he picked up one of the brown cloaks and got ready to rip it to shreds with his scythe.

"Like I'll wear this ugly piece of crap!" He dropped it to the floor by his feet and swung his scythe down on the thing. Before he could destroy the cloak, Kakuzu stopped the weapon with his hand.

"Hidan, we have our orders and you WILL obey them. Take of the Akatsuki robe and put on that brown one."

Hidan glared at the bounty hunter as he grudgingly started to remove his robe. He noticed at once that it was quite chilly when the sun had vanished from the desert, but he didn't dare shiver while his partner was around to notice it. Instead, he picked up the brown cloak – which was slightly coated in sand now – and pulled it on. There were buttons going down the front of it to keep it together, so Hidan did the bottom three up and left the top three undone. He didn't want to cover his necklace after all, or Jashin would surely punish him.

Kakuzu didn't even remove his robe and Hidan noticed how he just avoided the brown cloak entirely.

"Hey, Kakuzu, why aren't you wearing the fucking thing as well?"

"I will not be able to blend in with the village for three days. You will do that alone. I'll wait out here until the time is right." The creepy man gave his partner a cold glare. "And I suggest that you remove your head protector from around your neck. If they see that you're a missing nin, you'll get unneeded attention."

Hidan sighed in irritation, but he did as Kakuzu instructed and took the band off. He placed it with his Akatsuki robe and then started to walk towards the village. Kakuzu stopped him with his voice.

"You should leave your scythe too. The last thing that we need is for you to screw this easy mission up. I have better things to do than to fix your mistakes."

Hidan whirled around. "I'm not going to leave my scythe, you bastard!"

"You are if you don't want Leader's anger."

Silence filled the air between the two, until finally Hidan removed the scythe from his back and placed it with his other things. He walked back to the gap in the walls and started to travel through it, relieved that his annoying partner hadn't made anymore comments. He'd just lost a lot of what made up his life; he didn't think he could give up anymore.

When he was at the end and now facing the bustling village, Hidan whispered quietly to himself, "It's not like Leader could kill me anyway."

* * *

_Day of Confinement: 3_

"Damn!"

Deidara woke up suddenly to the rather random outburst of his red-haired partner. Perhaps Sasori had finally gone insane?

He looked towards Sasori and hesitantly asked, "Something wrong, yeah?"

Sasori, as if just realising that Deidara was awake, stared at the blonde man. He turned away and didn't answer, so Deidara assumed that Sasori was either ignoring him still or he hadn't heard him. So he repeated his question.

Sasori sighed and the blonde could tell that his partner was really, really miserable.

"Deidara, something is very, very wrong."

"Really? What is it, yeah?"

"I...I think I love Sakura."

Silence.

Deidara's eyes widened noticeably – luckily Sasori wasn't looking at him though. Then he grinned and said, "Well of course you do, yeah! I could tell right away that you did! I bet she loves you too, yeah!"

Sasori looked at Deidara, and the puppet master's eyes appeared so hopeful to him. "You really think she does?"

"Yep. Why wouldn't she, yeah?"

At once Sasori's face seemed to close up. "There are many reasons why she shouldn't like me, let alone love me Deidara."

"Well...she obviously likes you and I think she loves you too, yeah. So stop getting all depressed, it's pissing me off."

The puppeteer glared at his partner. "I'm not 'getting all depressed'. I'm just being realistic."

"Fine, whatever." He waved his only hand about in the air in a dismissive manner and then a thought struck him. "Let's make a bet. If, after these five days are up, pinky doesn't want to see you anymore...we'll know that she doesn't give a damn about you. However, if she still cares then I'm right and she loves you."

"Sounds...reasonable. What are we going to wager though? You don't have anything I want and I'm certain you don't want a puppet."

The blonde man closed his eyes in thought.

"Let me see... How about, the loser of the bet has to wear girly clothes for a whole day!"

"...Fine."

* * *

Sakura wandered around until she came across that same restaurant that she'd been eating in for the past two days. So far she'd had her lunch and dinner there. Now she wanted to try having a new meal for breakfast. She'd heard that they did special offers if you arrived early, so she'd woken up an hour before she normally did just to see if the rumours were true.

Just before she actually entered the alleyway though, a slumped figure asleep on the floor caught her eye. He seemed a little grubby, but not overly dirty, so he couldn't have been living on the streets for too long. Maybe he'd simply fallen asleep outside?

Sakura cautiously stepped closer to the man and peered at his face. He didn't seem disfigured at all, from what she could tell. He had strange greyish hair – almost silvery like an old man's. His expression wasn't exactly peaceful while he slept though, because he seemed to have a perpetual frown set on his face. Probably from the poor sleeping spot he picked out.

Sakura next took in how he was dressed – to better assess whether he was indeed homeless or not – and noticed he was wearing black trousers and shoes that ninja wore. He also had a baggy brown top on that was more like a robe than a normal shirt. It was undone slightly and Sakura could see that he had a strange necklace around his neck.

"Definitely not a beggar then." She mumbled. The girl shrugged and then stood up straight again. "Ah well, he's not my problem." She took off down the alleyway – which was next to the sleeping man – and stepped into the just recently opened restaurant.

* * *

Hidan was very uncomfortable. The ground was sandy and making him itch. His back ached from leaning against the wall all night and his face was starting to heat up from the morning sun. He didn't exactly fancy getting sunburnt or stepped on by any annoying villagers, so he reluctantly opened his purple eyes and instantly closed them when he stared into the bright sun.

"Fuck! My eyes!"

He covered his eyes and then started to try and stand up. His eyes were still covered when he got to his feet, so he didn't notice the little 'present' that a stray dog had left next to him until he took one step forwards and heard an almighty 'squelch!'

He froze. He slowly removed his hand from his eyes and looked down to where his left foot had just been placed.

"Crap! Who's fucking dog left crap there?! I swear by Lord Jashin that I'll kill whoever owns that fucking dog AND I'll kill the dog too!" He tried to wipe the smelly poop off of his shoe, but he only managed to pick up sand other things on the sole of his shoe instead. People weren't walking about down that street – luckily for Hidan – so nobody had heard his strange exclamation and alerted the authorities.

In the end, his only solution to getting rid of the mess was to take off his shoes. So he did.

"Great! Now I have to walk around in the fucking sand with no shoes!"

His stomach growled, announcing to Hidan that he was hungry now as well. Of course, he'd been hungry since last night because he'd forgotten to bring any food or money. Not that he had money though; that was Kakuzu's thing, not his.

"There had better not be any more fucking stones around here, or I'll have to sacrifice the whole village to Lord Jashin to calm down!"

The scent of delicious food wafted towards his nose from somewhere nearby. He followed the smell and came face to face – well face to restaurant would be more accurate – with a noodle restaurant that was neatly tucked away down a small alley. He started to take a few steps inside when suddenly a loud-mouthed woman practically screamed at him, "Get out! You're filthy! I won't have some homeless person disturbing my customers!"

Before he could even located the woman that had insulted him – so he could give her a piece of his own mind – two large men grabbed him firmly by his elbows and literally chucked him out of the restaurant. He landed painfully on his behind at the entrance of the alleyway.

Hidan glared at the men. "Bastards! Lord Jashin damn you!"

* * *

Sakura was a little shocked. She'd just started to eat her food when that sleeping man from before had walked into the restaurant – practically drooling at the smell of the food – and then been thrown out of it.

"That wasn't very fair..." she muttered sadly.

The man hadn't even said a word when he walked in. So what if he looked a little worse for ware; if he had some money they should let him eat there. It wasn't as though there were many people actually in the restaurant yet – there were only two people other than herself there and both were ninjas so Sakura doubted that they'd be in for too long anyway.

The pink-haired girl motioned for a waitress to come over. A young girl walked towards her small table and asked if she needed anything. Sakura smiled politely at her. "I'll be back in a few minutes. Do you think you could watch my table for me? I promise I won't be long."

The girl nodded her head and Sakura darted quickly to the front door. She stepped out and was glad to see that the man was still there, although he seemed to be very angry and muttering a load of curses.

When she was near enough she spoke as kindly as she could, "Um, excuse me sir."

He looked at her. He was glaring, but Sakura suspected that was more for the treatment he'd just had than for anything she'd done.

"I couldn't help noticing what just happened. That wasn't very fair of that lady to do to you."

"What's your point?"

Sakura was a little taken aback by that, but she persevered, "um...would you like me to talk to the lady so she'll let you eat there? It's not fair that she should kick out paying customers based on how they dress."

His eyes seemed to widen a little bit, although Sakura had no idea why. Then he began to curse again and the pink-haired girl wondered just how many different swear words he knew. Not that she'd use them though.

* * *

Hidan had only just realised that he couldn't eat at the restaurant anyway. No money means no food. He looked at the pink-haired girl standing in front of him. She was clearly expecting him to answer. The Jashin worshipper decided he had better respond since it wasn't exactly going to hurt him to do so.

"I don't have any fucking money, pinky, so it doesn't matter anyway." He started to stand up and leave, but her voice stopped him.

"Then...I'll pay for you!"

It was clearly something that she offered to do out of instinct and kindness, so Hidan thought about it. There was nothing she could possibly gain from helping him. She didn't appear like a vindictive person – unlike Hidan. And more than anything he was hungry. What could it hurt?

He turned around and gave the girl a small grin. "Alright, pinky, I accept."

* * *

_Day of Confinement: 4_

Sasori loved Sakura. He was certain of that now. He cared about her so much that the thought of causing her pain would never enter the puppeteer's mind. His only problem now was telling her how he felt, without looking like a total fool.

"I can't do it Deidara. She'll think I'm stupid."

Deidara was now sat next to Sasori, since the recent discovery had made Sasori rely on his blonde partner's advice. For reasons Sasori couldn't understand, Deidara seemed to know how feelings like love worked.

"She won't think you're stupid. All girls love it when someone says they 'love' them. You just have to say it in the right way. You'd look like an idiot if you said to her 'I love you'. You need to take her out on a date first, yeah."

The instructions seemed to make sense to the puppet master, but something was off with it at the same time. "Deidara, how do you know all this?"

"That's easy, yeah. I read."

His grin was actually starting to freak Sasori out, but what made him smirk was the knowledge that Deidara read ROMANCE novels.

"You read...romance novels Deidara?"

"Of course! It's the best way to get into the minds of women, yeah!"

Well, Sasori had just failed at trying to embarrass the blonde, since Deidara was apparently proud of his hobby. The red-head would personally rather be blind than ever read one of those things.

"So, what would I need to do on this...'date'?"

Deidara grinned even wider. "Listen closely, yeah. What I tell you, you must never forget."

* * *

Sakura was enjoying herself. After her breakfast yesterday she had taken to spending time with that sleeping man – whose name she had discovered was Hidan. He really didn't own anything more than what he was wearing, which really affected the poor girl. She'd also discovered that he was easily angered, prone to swearing and very interesting.

A nice little distraction until Sasori was allowed out.

She had helped Hidan get settled somewhere by paying for him to stay in a small inn. He said he was only going to be here for about three days, so she didn't have to worry about paying for too much. She'd also made sure he had a lunch and a dinner yesterday, because in her opinion he was looking a bit...thin.

"I feel like I'm mothering the guy and I've only just met him!"

At the moment she was heading towards that same restaurant to meet him so he could eat his lunch. Earlier he had declined eating breakfast with her, so Sakura had taken the time to buying him some cheap sandals – she'd noticed that he'd lost his shoes somewhere.

For some reason, Sakura was no longer so miserable. Before yesterday, she'd been depressed and bored. Now she was happy and busy. It was a luckily coincidence that she'd met Hidan and an even bigger one that he would be staying for the number of days that Sasori would be confined.

Just as Sakura entered the alleyway, she spotted Hidan walking towards her from across the street. She waved and smiled at the grey-haired man. "Hi Hidan! I bought you some new shoes." She handed him the parcel she carried in her hands.

His purple eyes widened and he seemed to be completely stunned by her kindness. He carefully opened the brown wrapping – which was just the paper bag from the shoe shop taped together – and opened the box. Inside were a pair of plain, simple sandals that were exactly his size.

* * *

Hidan slipped the sandals on and he instantly felt better about walking places. The sand was making his feet sore and he had nearly ten blisters on both his feet.

He glanced down at the girl who had – for no reason whatsoever – shown him kindness. If not for this girl, he'd have been living outside for the remaining days and not eating a thing. He'd also be shoeless. He made a mental note to kill Kakuzu and Zetsu when he was finally through with everything. It was their faults that he was now indebted to this girl. Even if she didn't know it.

"Thanks pinky."

He started to walk to the restaurant – in the new and very comfortable sandals – and he heard the girl yell at him, "My name's Sakura! Not 'pinky'!"

She walked next to him and they entered the restaurant.

They took their usual table – it was now anyway since they'd eaten at the same one for what was to be their fourth meal – and ordered the same thing they had the day before. While they waited for their food, Hidan lightly drummed his fingers on the table.

* * *

Sakura's eye began to twitch. It was bad enough that he kept calling her 'pinky' – like a certain blonde haired ex-Akatsuki always did – but did he have to do that with his fingers? It was sooo irritating when a person drummed their fingers on a surface. Heck, it was even irritating when they tapped a finger on something.

She honed in on the offending fingers and only then did she realise something. His nails were painted the same colour as Sasori and Deidara's nails. And he was wearing a ring just like theirs too!

Panic started to settle in on the girl. If he was with the Akatsuki then he might be there to do something to Sasori and Deidara. They were officially traitors, even if they hadn't told the other members that they were. Of course, if the others didn't know then it was likely that they'd only send someone to see what was keeping the duo.

It made sense that Hidan was with the Akatsuki when Sakura really thought about it.

He had the little signs like the nails and the ring. He also used to wear shoes like theirs until recently. On top of that, he was only staying here for the exact same amount of time that Sasori and Deidara would be.

The thing that struck Sakura as puzzling though, was the lack of any weapons or anything he could use to defend himself with. If he didn't have anything like that, then perhaps he too had left the Akatsuki?

For Sasori's sake, Sakura sure hoped so.

* * *

Hidan noticed that Sakura had gone a little pale. It wasn't as though he cared or anything, but she seemed to have mentally retreated from him entirely. This seemed like the perfect opportunity to make up for the debt he owed her, by finding out what was wrong and seeing if it was possible for him to fix it.

"Oi, Sakura, what's up?"

"N-Nothing H-Hidan! I'm just not feeling very well. I must have a c-cold. I'll just go! Here's some money for the food!" The pink-haired girl slammed a few notes onto the table to cover the bill and ran quickly out of the place.

"That was weird..."

* * *

Sakura ran until she was back in her room in the Kazekage's building. Then she sat on her bed and started trying to calm her pulse down by taking deep breaths.

She had to think rationally. If Hidan really was with the Akatsuki, she'd have to keep an eye on him to find out what he was doing there. If he wasn't, then she'd at least have a decent person to talk to.

"I'll just go to the inn he's staying at and tell him I really did feel ill. He'll understand. Then I can watch his movements while we eat later. It's a good plan, it could work."

Resolved that nothing could go wrong with her plan, Sakura left her room and headed for the inn that was only a couple of streets away from the noodle restaurant. With luck, Hidan would be there when she arrived.

She knocked on the door to his room and heard a scraping of a chair on the floor. No doubt he was sat down at the small desk then. The door creaked open and a mildly surprised Hidan greeted the pink-haired girl.

He quirked an eyebrow at her. "Feeling better now, are you?"

"Yeah...sorry about that Hidan. When I get sick though, it's not a pretty sight! You seriously don't want me around when it happens."

"Right...so, what are you doing here then?"

"I wanted to apologise for leaving like that. And also, to remind you to meet me at the restaurant again for dinner later, okay?" She smiled warmly, hoping he wouldn't catch how nervous she was about being face to face with a potential enemy.

"No it's not okay. I'm sick of eating at that fucking place for every meal! I need variety."

Choosing to ignore his swearing – which was becoming normal for Sakura – she thought over what he'd said. "Well, you're right that it is pretty boring eating there each day. The thing is, I don't know of any other places to eat at. I'm not from this village, in case you couldn't tell by my headband." She pointed to the headband that was on top of her head.

Hidan looked at it and his eyes widened slightly. Clearly he hadn't noticed.

"You're from the Leaf village?"

Yep, he was slow.

"Yes, Hidan, I am. So I don't know this village very well. I could ask a friend for help, but I don't know if she can. Come to think of it, I haven't seen her in a while and she was supposed to be helping me with something..."

Sakura zoned out as she wondered just what had happened to Temari. Apparently the older woman had gone to ask about getting a task for Sakura to do, but she hadn't come to see Sakura once since the first day.

* * *

Hidan didn't like that she was too busy thinking of something else to not even focus on him. It was bad enough that he hadn't even known she was from another village, but the chances that she came from the Leaf village were pure luck. On top of that, she didn't seem to be doing anything at all because she spent most of her time talking with him now. If Hidan were to guess, he'd say that she was here to escort the traitors to the Leaf village once their days of being confined were over. But he had to make sure...

"Hey, Sakura, why don't we look for a place now and then meet there later?"

Her eyes came back into focus and she smiled at him. "Sure, let's do that."

* * *

"So, did you get all that Sasori?"

The red-haired man nodded his head slowly as all the information Deidara had just told him sunk in. He had no idea his partner was so knowledgeable. It really made Deidara seem clever with all the things that he'd just told Sasori.

"Are you sure it'll work?"

"Of course, yeah! I'm never wrong about these things."

He seemed confident enough, so Sasori chose to accept all the advice as truth.

After tomorrow night, Sasori was going on a date.

* * *

_Day of Confinement: 5_

Nothing interesting happened on this day. It was the last one and each person involved had their own thoughts swimming through their minds.

Sasori was very nervous. After tonight, he'd be confessing how he felt to Sakura and hopefully she would not reject him.

Deidara was just plain anxious. He hadn't created anything out of clay for days and he was starting to become...rather like a squirrel. He'd jump at the smallest sounds and he sometimes babbled nonsense.

Sakura was very eager to see Sasori again. Heck, she even missed Deidara. She wanted to show Sasori the Leaf village! He'd surely love it and Sakura was positive that he'd be accepted straight away by everyone. They'd accepted Gaara after all and he had tried to kill them all in the past.

Hidan was positively itching to hurt someone. More importantly, he really wanted to offer some fools to his Lord Jashin. He'd spent too long being peaceful and without his precious scythe. And his Lord Jashin hadn't had any sacrifices from him in ages so he had to give him some soon.

* * *

Hidan was also highly annoyed and confused. The reason was that girl – Sakura. He owed her still and that meant that he had to somehow repay the debt or he would be disgracing his god.

He sighed heavily as the day went by in a blur – with him doing his now daily meetings with Sakura for food. It was already late into the night when he checked out of the inn – he left a small written note of thanks for Sakura – and proceeded to head outside the village to go back to Kakuzu.

He had to admit – at least to himself – that the days he spent away from Kakuzu were probably more enjoyable than anything else he'd done for a long time.

He saw the irritating bounty hunter leaning against the wall when he stepped out of the gap in the two large sand walls. Hidan's things were next to the man – the word used in it's loosest possible terms – so the Jashin worshipper started to gather them up and put them back on.

"I take it that you didn't do anything stupid Hidan?"

"Shut the fuck up! I had no fucking money, thanks to you! So don't even start talking to me, or I'll send you straight to Hell!"

Kakuzu didn't respond and just started to walk in the direction that the Leaf village was in.

Hidan glared at his back and followed him, but not before throwing the brown cloak in the direction that his possessions had previously been.

* * *

It was midnight. Sasori could tell. He didn't know how he knew, he just did. Just like he knew he was forgetting something very important.

He sat up quickly on the futon and hit his forehead when he remembered.

"I'm supposed to be meeting that spy in a few days. I completely forgot! As soon as we're released, I'll have to tell Sakura that we need to take a slight detour. There's no way that I'll get to the meeting place if we go all the way to the Leaf village first."

He lay back down and closed his eyes, simulating sleep even though he actually couldn't. He wasn't exactly normal after all.

* * *

Authoress' Note: Remember to please review and also, in your reviews, can you tell me what you would like to happen to Hidan? Should he be 'killed' - I know he can't die but he can be seperated - or should he live? Please let me know.


	12. Changes

_**Disclaimer: I do not own 'Naruto' or anything associated with the manga or anime.**_

_**Authoress' Note: Nice short chapter for you all after that really long one that made my brain turn to mush for three whole days O.o . Anywho, thank you to all who read and reviewed the last chapter. Please enjoy this one and also review, because they motivate me to write more .**_

* * *

**A Broken Friendship**

**Chapter Twelve: Changes**

The first thing on Sakura's mind as she awoke wasn't Sasori – which was a little surprising considering that she'd thought about seeing him all day yesterday and all night. Instead, her mind was on her normal meeting with Hidan. It had become something of a structured, expected thing for the past few days to meet Hidan at that same noodle restaurant. So of course, she totally forgot that she wouldn't be meeting him anymore after the five days were over.

She made her way down the streets of the Sand village with a contented smile on her face. Since her paranoid moment a couple of days ago, Sakura had decided that Hidan wasn't even a ninja. He was too loud and a little slow, so there was no way that any village, let alone the Akatsuki, would let him become a ninja.

Then again, her own village had made Naruto a ninja.

When she arrived at the restaurant, she was nearly ten minutes late and Hidan wasn't waiting outside.

"Odd... maybe he's waiting inside instead..."

Sakura stepped into the building and looked towards their usual table. Again, there was no trace of the grey-haired man. She was slightly confused, so trying to be rational, Sakura left the restaurant and walked the two streets over to the inn that Hidan stayed at.

She pushed open the wooden door and walked to the reception desk. The woman sat lazily behind the counter blinked when she saw the pink-haired girl and then produced a piece of paper from a desk drawer. "Your friend left this note for you. He left last night."

A little curious and feeling a great sense of deja vu, Sakura took the out-stretched note and unfolded it. It was brief and not very explanatory:

'_Hey pinky! Thanks for all the stuff you did for me. I'll make it up to you one day.'_

It wasn't even signed or anything. With a sorrowful sigh, Sakura thanked the lady at the desk and slowly left the inn. Her feet felt heavy as she moved them and her eyes never left the ground. She was depressed again. It was sad that she had just started to make a new friend and then the friend chose to leave her without even a word of where he was heading.

Almost exactly like Sasori had done...

"Sasori! Oh no, I completely forgot!"

It took a whole twenty minutes, but Sakura eventually arrived back at the Kazekage's building. Her only problem was where Sasori was being held. She hadn't the faintest idea, but she assumed that Gaara would definitely know, so she proceeded to his office and knocked calmly on the door – although inside her heart was beating rapidly in her chest and she was anything but calm.

"Come in," called the young Kazekage's bored voice from the other side of the wooden door.

Sakura twisted the handle and pushed the door open. Her head poked in through the gap she created, "Um... hi Gaara." She stepped all the way in and closed the door.

Gaara's blue eyes looked up from his latest workload of papers and locked onto the pink-haired girl from the Leaf village who had just walked into his office.

"Good morning Sakura. I assume you're here because the confinement period is over now?" She nodded and he rose from his chair. "Let's go let your friends out then."

* * *

Deidara was still twitchy, even though they were both being released at last. Sasori wondered if his bizarre partner would ever regain his 'sanity' again. The blonde had been separate from his clay and his skies for so long that he had started to mutter and twitch about all the most random of things. Like the cracks in the ceiling or the smallest echoes from down the corridor.

"Deidara, settle down or I'll make you."

Deidara ignored the red-haired puppeteer, so Sasori raised his right hand and applied chakra strings to Deidara's right arm. He began making the blonde man slap his face with his own hand, until he stopped mumbling and started to yell at Sasori to "Knock it off!"

The strings disappeared from Deidara's arm and Sasori glared hard at him. "Are you going to stop acting crazy now?"

He mumbled quietly, "It wasn't an act, yeah..."

"Fine, just stop doing it. We'll be out soon so you don't even need to be weird." Sasori paused and started to pace. "And I somehow need to ask... Sakura out... on a date... and then... then..."

Deidara grinned slyly and pat Sasori on the back. "Tell her you love her, yeah!"

"It's not as simple as you make it out Deidara! I... I'm afraid she won't feel the same way. Maybe I should just wait?"

"If you wait then she'll just go after some other idiot, yeah. Like that Naruto kid."

Sasori felt a spark of jealousy at that. It was true that Sakura knew that kid a lot better than she knew him. Sasori could also tell that the boy liked Sakura a lot and was extremely jealous of how close he was to Sakura while they travelled. It wouldn't surprise the puppeteer if she fell for the boy she knew over the new guy who kept so much from her.

"I know that Deidara, but there's nothing I can do if she would rather be with that boy than be with me. I... I don't want to hurt her."

"I don't believe this! You've become a sap, yeah! You used to like hurting others. Don't get all wimpy just because some girl caught your attention!"

Sasori fixed his partner with a dark glare. "She's not just 'some girl', Deidara. She's Sakura and I don't want to hurt her anymore. I don't mind harming those that aren't connected to Sakura, but if it makes her upset then I will not do it, alright?"

Deidara's blue eyes shifted to the door and away from his partner's furious glare. "Fine, whatever you say, yeah. Looks like we're getting out at last."

The door clicked open and a pink-haired person practically flew into the room to hug Sasori.

Sasori's nervousness was clear in his voice, "S-Sakura... it was only five days..."

The girl moved away from him. "I know, but I missed you. I was so bored and it was really lonely without you there you know."

From Sasori's left, Deidara was smirking smugly. The puppet master knew right away what the cause was though: Deidara believed he had won the bet. Far from it. Sakura hadn't mentioned being worried about him or that she cared deeply. She merely missed a friend.

Sadness enveloped the puppeteer, but he masked it with a blank face as they walked out of the building and left the village behind them. It was as they were crossing the vast desert – heading east for the Fire Country – that Sasori decided to mention his small task.

"Sakura, Deidara there's something you both need to know. In about five days from now, a spy that I had planted with Orochimaru will be waiting for me with information on the snake. The meeting place is a bridge that's almost a two-day journey to from the Leaf village. I'm telling you this because we may not have time to go to the Leaf village before I'm supposed to be there."

There was no word from either of the two. Sasori waited patiently while they continued on their journey. A small forest was up ahead and they entered it in complete silence. Eventually Sasori grew annoyed with the lack of conversation.

"Aren't either of you going to say anything about what I just told you?"

Deidara shrugged. "What's there to say, yeah? I'll go wherever you want to go Sasori."

Sakura seemed to be struggling with her words. Sasori tried to prompt her, "Sakura... what about you?"

"Why didn't you tell me this before?"

She sounded close to tears and Sasori didn't know why. "I only remembered the other day. It wasn't like I could tell you while I was being confined Sakura."

"That's not the point Sasori!" She stopped in her tracks and yanked on his arm to get him to look at her. Tears were starting to fall down her cheeks. "You never tell me anything about you or your life! Everything I seem to learn is by accident or from someone else! I've told you so much about my life, so why can't you do the same? The only time you let me find out things was when I had your permission to ask any question I wanted to. If you want to be my friend, why won't you tell me things? I thought you cared about how I felt, because I certainly care about you!"

She let go of his arm and took off running through the trees down a side path, hands over her face as she cried endlessly.

Sasori merely stood facing where she had last been. He was shocked. He was speechless. He'd found out two things from her tears: one, she cared about him; and two, he was hurting her by not telling her things, by not opening up.

For once, Deidara had nothing snide to say.

* * *

Sakura continued to run blindly through the lush forest, until she tripped over a tree root and stumbled out of the trees onto another path. Before she could get her bearings and right herself, she collided with a firm object – and it wasn't a tree, luckily.

She blinked and looked up, but her vision was too blurry to make out what it was.

She was still baffled until a familiar voice rang through her ears, "Hey pinky, fancy seeing you again so soon."

It was Hidan.


	13. Lost

**_Disclaimer: I do not own 'Naruto' or anything associated with the manga or anime._**

**_Authoress' Note: Here's chapter 13 for you all! Thank you to my readers and reviewers, I loves you lot! huggles. And apologies in advance that Sasori doesn't have much involvement in this chapter. He shall next chapter for sure!_**

* * *

**A Broken Friendship**

**Chapter Thirteen: Lost**

It was quite the shock for Hidan when a strange object collided with his side. He was about to curse the thing to Hell and then offer it to his Lord, when he saw that the person's head was covered with bubblegum-pink hair. The head titled upwards – probably to get a better grasp of what they had run into – and Hidan recognised right away that this was that girl from before, Sakura.

He smirked, "Hey pinky, fancy seeing you again so soon."

Hidan saw her eyes widen slightly and he could tell that Sakura had just realised who he was – her eyes were really fogged up with tears after all. He idly wondered what had made her cry so badly and run away, but he chose to not dwell on it too long. It wasn't like he wanted any kind of attachment with this girl after all.

"H-Hidan..?"

Her voice was broken and confused. The Jashin worshipper could tell and it was bugging him that he noticed it at all. Before he could say or do anything, Kakuzu came up next to him and grabbed Sakura's arms tightly. She cried out in pain, but she was unable to even move from the bounty hunter's grasp.

"Hidan, this girl will be bait for them."

Hidan quirked an eyebrow and crossed his arms, not really seeing where his partner was going with the plan. "How? And why this girl?"

"Zetsu gave me more information while you were in that village. This girl is Sasori's weakness. He left us for her."

Shocked would be an understatement for how Hidan felt at that moment. The knowledge that this girl had somehow lured Sasori – Deidara too – from the Akatsuki was a surprise. Of course, Hidan understood how it might be possible. Already this pink-haired 'angel' had gotten to the Jashin worshipper. He had liked spending time with her and he still owed her a great debt.

Now she was captured, in danger and very upset – although he still didn't know why she was crying.

She needed help.

"Kakuzu, that's a stupid plan. It won't fucking work because the puppet man doesn't even know where she is now."

Perhaps that would help the girl.

The creepy Akatsuki member shoved Sakura forcefully into Hidan's shocked arms and then moved a little bit away from him. "It will work Hidan. We just need to send a message to them. Kill her and we'll leave the body where they can see it. Then they'll come to us."

Hidan could feel the girl tremble in fear. Not that she really had anything to worry about though; Hidan wasn't going to kill her. That would mess up his whole debt problem and Jashin would forever damn him.

"Why don't we keep her with us and trade her for their rings?"

The idea sounded pathetic even to Hidan's ears, but it was either that or nothing. He felt Sakura's trembling slow down a little and therefore he assumed he'd said something right.

Kakuzu picked up on the change in his partner. His eyes narrowed dangerously. "You're acting weirder than usual Hidan. Don't you want to offer this girl to your ridiculous God?"

Hidan's hands tightened their hold on Sakura's arms – almost protectively. "You're always fucking complaining about how long my rituals take Kakuzu! I figured I was doing you a favour, bastard."

The deadly look never wavered from Kakuzu's eyes, but at length he relented, "Fine. We'll do it your way." Hidan let out a sigh of relief. Kakuzu continued, "But if the girl pisses me off, I'll kill her myself."

As though Hidan would actually let his freaky partner kill Sakura.

Kakuzu turned around and started to walk down the path. "Let's keep moving. We'll cut them off when they reach the border."

While Kakuzu was walking on ahead, Hidan trailed behind with Sakura. He held one of her arms tightly so that she wouldn't escape – not too tight that it hurt her though. When the purple-eyed man was sure his partner wouldn't be able to hear them, he started trying to make conversation, "So pinky, what brings you all the way out here?"

She didn't answer him.

"Oi, I asked you a fucking question."

Her watery eyes didn't leave the ground as she said, "I can't believe you're an Akatsuki. I'm so stupid."

She seemed to get even more upset after that, but Hidan couldn't even work out why. Still, he had to make her stop or Kakuzu would hear her crying and kill her.

He shook her arm a little and said, "You're not stupid, just too trusting. Now stop fucking crying before that bastard hears you."

Her tears slowed down, as did her whimpering. The silence was starting to piss Hidan off. He had to break it or he'd go nuts. "You didn't actually answer my question, pinky."

"Stop calling me pinky!" she hissed angrily, "We're not friends so you have no right to start giving me annoying nicknames."

That hurt a little – yet once again, Hidan didn't want to address the reason.

"What about back in that stupid village? You treated me like a friend, but you didn't even know me."

Sakura still refused to look at him, even though this conversation was getting very...personal. "That was different. I didn't think you were evil back then."

"So because you've found out I'm in the Akatsuki, I'm evil? Seems your logic's a little faulty Sakura. Why doesn't your rule fit with Sasori too?"

"I...I don't know."

More silence gripped the pair and it was heavy and depressing.

* * *

Sakura truly felt like an idiot. It seemed that every time she started to trust someone – often a guy – they would go and do something to hurt or confuse her. Sasuke did it...Sasori did it...and now Hidan had done it.

It was official: she had no manner of luck whatsoever.

Sakura finally moved her eyes from the floor and looked at Hidan. It was startling for her to discover that strapped on his back was a large, three-bladed scythe. He also seemed to come from a village she had never heard of before, judging by the headband tied around his neck. At least Hidan wore his though; the only way Sakura was able to learn where Sasori had come from was through the discovery that Chiyo was his grandmother, making him a Sand ninja.

Sakura shifted her gaze to the other Akatsuki up ahead, but she couldn't really work out anything about him. All she knew was that he had super strength, a creepy voice and she kept getting, as Ino would say, 'bad vibes' from him. The guy wanted Hidan to kill her and then display the body somewhere for Sasori to find! He was definitely bad news.

Thinking back, Sakura realised that Hidan had actually prevented that from happening. Had he been protecting her, or was it really for the reasons he gave?

"Why did you protect me Hidan?"

"P-Protecting you! Where'd you get a crazy idea like that?"

His stutter convinced Sakura that he was protecting her, but he didn't want her knowing. At long last Sakura looked straight at Hidan and smiled gratefully. "Thank you."

His purple eyes looked into her green eyes, searching for a sign of deceit. When he found none, he looked away, confusion written plainly across his features.

"You shouldn't be thanking me. When your friends show up, they'll die."

Her eyes widened in fear. "B-But you s-said it would be a t-trade..."

"I know what I fucking said! It doesn't matter, because our Leader's orders are to get the rings and make sure that they don't spill any secrets. Even if I don't kill them, Kakuzu will."

"Then don't kill them! Let me go and then nobody will need to die."

Hidan eyed Sakura curiously. "In case you didn't notice pinky, Kakuzu won't stop coming after your friends until the mission's complete."

Sakura knew that Hidan was right. Realistically the only solution would be to kill or capture Kakuzu.

Quietly, she whispered to herself, "Then we'll just have to stop him."

* * *

Sasori was about to follow after Sakura, maybe ask her what he could do to fix things, but Deidara pulled on his arm and prevented him from moving.

"Deidara, let go."

"No way, yeah"

That was clever of him to say – not.

"Just give her some time, yeah. Girls like time to themselves when they're all...emotional and stuff."

Once again Sasori wondered why Deidara of all people was giving him logical advice about girls. It was...disturbing.

"Very well, I'll give Sakura an hour. Then I'm going to go find her."

Sasori found a large tree stump next to the path and sat down on it, seriously dreading the hour-long wait. Deidara flopped down onto the ground and lay there in silence for a good two minutes. After that time, naturally, his big mouth opened and he grinned from ear to ear, "I won the bet, yeah."

His smugness and the too-large grin really irritated the puppeteer. Solution: a nice sharp stone thrown at the blonde's face. It made a pleasing impact directly on Deidara's nose and the blonde man sat up clutching his face protectively.

"Hey, what was that for, yeah?!"

"You were being an idiot Deidara. You haven't won your bet, because Sakura does not love me. She only cares about me as a friend would – and even those feelings are smaller than the ones she feels for that Naruto boy."

"So...who won, yeah?"

"We both lost in some form or another."

"Oh..."

Sasori was very depressed. Even more so than when Sakura had taken off in tears. It was with a horrid realisation that the puppet master discovered his feelings were not reciprocated and most likely never would be. He could not help it if he was not the open person Sakura expected; for much of his life he had been secretive and cautious. She herself had told him that he only needed to be himself and she'd accept him, but that wasn't entirely true. The person Sasori was now, was himself. He couldn't be a foolish, babbling, moron like her normal friends. He was who he was.

"I love her...but she doesn't love me..."

If he could cry, Sasori supposed that there would be a few tears in his eyes. Instead, he just closed his eyes and absorbed all the emotions his small heart could muster.

* * *

"My feet hurt. Can we stop to rest please?"

It had been the fifth time that Sakura had complained about aching feet. Hidan was certainly sick of it and would gladly let her rest, but he knew that Kakuzu wouldn't listen or care.

The Jashin worshipper stopped walking suddenly, forcing Sakura to do the same. Kakuzu noticed and turned his head to look back at them both, rage present in his odd coloured eyes.

"Kakuzu, can we stop for a fucking minute?" whined Hidan, trying his best to annoy his freaky partner. "Just because I can't die doesn't mean I don't get tired. I'm fucking hungry too."

Kakuzu tried to decide whether Hidan was being truthful or not. Unfortunately, he was never good at understanding his bizarre partner so he relented, "We'll walk a little longer until we find a rest stop."

"Sounds good to me! There'd better be one soon though."

The bounty hunter turned his head back the other way and continued to walk onwards, although now he kept his eyes open for a sign of an inn or a small food stall.

Hidan grinned and tugged Sakura to get her moving again. Quietly he whispered to her, "Is that good enough, pinky?"

"...Thanks. And stop calling me that!"

"But I like calling you 'pinky', pinky. It's fun!" Sakura didn't look amused in the slightest bit. Hidan's cocky grin vanished and was replaced with a cheery smile instead. "When will you let me call you that then, Sakura?"

"Never, because we are not friends!" she hissed at him.

"Why can't we be friends then?"

Hidan was genuinely curious about it. He wanted to know why it wouldn't be possible. Akatsuki lifestyle aside, there wasn't anything he could think of preventing such a thing. She'd managed it with Sasori and even Deidara, so why not him as well?

"Because...you're...well you're..." she was getting frustrated, "we're supposed to be enemies that's why!"

Hidan didn't look convinced at all, having already made up in his own mind that there was nothing stopping them from being friends. A pretty insane idea if he were anyone else.

He replied in a sing-song, 'you're in denial so I don't believe you' tone of voice, "If you say so, pinky."

Kakuzu's grating voice interrupted the small 'argument', "Hidan, there's a small inn just down that path." He pointed with one of his fingers to the left, where a tiny stone pathway could be seen.

Hidan wasn't sure how Kakuzu could see the inn, because he certainly couldn't, but he listened to his partner and followed him down the little path. It was narrow – with great thick trees close together on either side – so Hidan pulled Sakura closer to him to ensure she didn't run. That was when he noticed how small she was compared to his own height. So small and fragile – she really did need to be protected.

His thoughts alarmed him and Hidan randomly yelled out in surprise, "What the fuck?!"

The other two gave him funny looks, but neither bothered to question the Jashin worshipper. Kakuzu recalled that Hidan often said stupid and bizarre things with no explanation; Sakura remembered all the times he'd yelled at people for being rude to him, and then promised pain and death by someone called 'Jashin'.

The path widened considerably and the trio emerged into a large enclosure with a small inn at the centre of it. Kakuzu gave his partner an irritated look. "We're here."

They entered the little building.

* * *

**PLEASE REVIEW!**


	14. Distance

_**Disclaimer: I do not own 'Naruto' or anything associated with the manga or anime.**_

**_Authoress' Note: Sorry for the delay in the update. A week and a day is too long for this story, heheh. Well, hope you all enjoy this installment and please please please leave a review to let me know what you think. I do accept annonymous reviews too, in case you didn't know, lol!_**

**_Thankies to EVERYONE who read, reviewed, alerted, faved... the list goes on. You guys give me strength and inspire me. I enjoy the moment I open my e-mail inbox and see that someone else has reviewed or whatever. Please stick with me!_**

* * *

**A Broken Friendship**

**Chapter Fourteen: Distance**

The inn was truly as small as it appeared on the outside. There was a cosy looking lounge area in one corner with a couple of armchairs and a fireplace. A door leading off into a snug kitchen area. One bathroom opposite the stairs and finally a little dining area with one long table that had the potential to seat eight people. Judging from the height of the building itself, Sakura could safely assume that there was only one other floor up the stairs and nothing much else.

As far as the pink-haired girl could tell, there was only one other guest in the whole inn – all the other room keys except one were still on the hooks behind the counter. That meant she only had one person she could ask to get help and one simply wasn't enough.

Sakura accepted her doomed fate as Hidan carefully tugged her towards the reception desk, where Kakuzu was already arranging for rooms. The woman serving them appeared to be in her late forties, with greying hair and a stout body. She was smiling fondly at them all – which mildly disturbed Sakura.

Sakura's thoughts left her when she heard Kakuzu tell the woman that they'd need one room, not two. The woman tried to protest about decency and all that sort of thing, gradually tipping the anger scale that bubbled within Kakuzu, but Hidan intervened to prevent a potential mistake, "Come on Kakuzu, just do what the woman says alright? Besides, it's not like my girlfriend and I want you near us at all times."

Sakura nearly choked on Hidan's words, but she resisted it. She couldn't, unfortunately, hide the shock that went through her system when he grabbed her hand and held it tightly in his own one. Thankfully the woman bought the con and allowed Hidan to share the same room as Sakura. Kakuzu's room would be opposite theirs.

Just before Hidan could close the door, Kakuzu grabbed Hidan's arm. The Jashin worshipper looked both disgusted and curious at his partner's strange action. Kakuzu had never once tried to touch Hidan to get his attention, so something had to be up.

"Hidan, I need to go take care of some business. Make sure the girl doesn't escape. When I return, we'll kill her."

With those words the freaky bounty hunter took off down the hallway and left the inn. Hidan remained standing in the doorway, confused and pissed off. He turned his head away from the spot Kakuzu had been standing in and his eyes found Sakura's depressed form slumped on the bed. Her eyes were downcast and she looked, for all the world, as though her life was over. Had she heard his freaky partner's words? Hidan didn't know.

"Hidan," came Sakura's sad voice, "have you ever said something so terrible to someone you cared about, that there was no possible way to take the words back?"

"Can't say as I have, pinky. Caring doesn't rate high on my list of things to do in life." The atmosphere was incredibly miserable – Hidan could tell. "Why do you ask?"

Sakura's already glistening eyes shut tightly – to hold in the tears – and she clenched her hands into fists with such strength that her palms began to bleed. Hidan made no move to stop her or get her to talk some more. He rather liked his safe zone by the doorway. Less chances that the 'angel' before his eyes could enchant him from such a distance.

"I...said some horrible, stupid things to Sasori. I yelled at him!" Even though Sakura's eyes were shut, water droplets still managed to find a way out. "He's learning to be a friend. He's learning to care and I...I was such an idiot...Now I won't even be able to tell him 'I'm sorry', because your creepy partner plans to have me killed the second he gets back!"

Her green orbs snapped open after her declaration and she glared fiercely at Hidan. He didn't flinch or step back, even when she leapt from the bed and charged at him, both fists raised and ready for attack. He caught her wrists and held her firmly in place in front of him, waiting for her to calm down.

"Are you fucking finished now, pinky?"

"Stop calling me that you bastard!" Her struggling started up again, but his grip never faltered. "Let. Me. Go!"

"Not until you calm down pinky."

Sakura couldn't understand how Hidan could be so calm. He wasn't even angry with her! Sakura on the other hand was livid. He expected her to be calm, even though any minute now she was going to die? The bastard!

"How do you expect me to calm down when I'm going to die soon?!"

Calmly and carefully, Hidan said, "No, you aren't going to die yet."

That confused Sakura.

"But your partner just said that you'd both be killing me when he got back!"

Still with that calmness Hidan answered Sakura, "Kakuzu can go fuck himself for all I care. I'm taking you home – now."

Sakura immediately stopped all struggling in Hidan's grip.

"W-What?"

She didn't understand. Weren't the Akatsuki the BAD GUYS?

"Don't make me repeat myself pinky. Let's just go now before the bastard finds out."

All Sakura could do was stare dumbly as Hidan tugged on one of her wrists and led her out of the inn...and towards freedom.

* * *

The hour was nearly up and Sasori was getting restless. It was one thing to spend an hour waiting because it was part of a mission, but an entirely different matter when he had to do wait an hour because a girl needed time alone. He very much doubted that Sakura needed as long as Deidara claimed. In fact, Sasori felt that Sakura could be in danger or trouble by now.

Standing up quickly, Sasori started walking through the trees in the direction that Sakura had gone. Deidara sat up and looked mildly surprised at his partner's actions, but he soon followed the puppeteer into the trees.

"Hey, Sasori! Slow down, yeah!"

The red-head kept his quick pace so Deidara was forced to lag behind him. Sasori couldn't afford to wait for his blonde companion. He could tell that Sakura was in danger and he needed to be there for her – even if she refused his company.

Deidara noticed that his partner wasn't going to even wait for him, so he decided to get his attention the only way he knew how, "So, what colour dress do you want, yeah? I'm thinking...pink for you, yeah!"

Sasori immediately stopped in his tracks. Deidara carried on walking until he was right next to his 'friend' - a huge grin plastered on his face because he had succeeded in stopping Sasori.

"Pink's definitely your colour, yeah. That must be why you like Sakura so.." Sasori's fist connected with Deidara's face, silencing anything that the blonde was about to say.

"Not another word Deidara. Don't give me a reason to cause real damage to you."

Sasori didn't even bother to waste time glaring at Deidara, he just carried on walking through the small cluster of trees until he emerged on another path – this one a little more visible than their previous path.

Sasori was a little thrown off now, since Sakura was nowhere in sight and he had no way of knowing which way she had gone. He guessed that she probably took off in the direction of her home, so east it would be. He turned right on the path and started to walk. If he ran he'd probably miss something important and then he'd never find her.

He heard hurried footsteps behind him and assumed that Deidara had finally chosen what he wanted to do in life – stick by Sasori even if he got pummelled in the face painfully.

"That really kinda hurt, yeah! You didn't have to hit me to shut me up, yeah. A simple 'shut up' would've worked, yeah!"

"If I hadn't hit you, we'd still be back in those trees. We have to find her soon Deidara."

"Why's that then, yeah? Nothing's going to get her in the middle of nowhere, yeah."

Sasori glanced briefly at his partner, then faced ahead again. It wasn't like Deidara could understand how Sasori felt. The puppet master couldn't explain how he knew that Sakura needed him, he just **knew**. It was a deep feeling of dread...as deep as his feeling of...something that he felt for Sakura. He honestly couldn't ever clearly say 'love' because Sasori just didn't know what that meant. He was positive that he would do anything for Sakura though – absolutely anything.

"I just know she needs help Deidara."

"I see."

They didn't say another word for quite some time. After about ten minutes of nothing but walking and careful checking for any kind of sign that Sakura had been there, Deidara broke the silence – nothing new there really.

"So, when we get to Sakura's village after your small detour, yeah, what will you say to ask her out on a date?"

"I haven't decided yet. And now really isn't the time Deidara."

Deidara's jaw dropped a little at Sasori's words. "Now's the perfect time, yeah! You'll be around each other all the time when we find her, so you may as well practice while you can Sasori."

"No."

"Awww come on, yeah," whined Deidara, "I'll be Sakura and you be...you."

Well that was clever of you Deidara – not.

"No."

"Pwetty pwease, yeah?"

Deidara even tried a 'puppy-dog-pout' to persuade Sasori. Sasori glared at his ridiculous partner.

"NO!"

The red-haired ninja started taking longer strides to separate himself from Deidara, but sadly failed in his task when the blonde ninja matched his pace.

"Deidara, drop the subject already!"

"Fine, yeah! Jeez...you get so angry these days it's scary. No wonder she ran away from you..."

Not surprisingly, Sasori hit Deidara in the face – again. The blonde man grabbed his nose in pain, worried that it was broken from excessive punching. He deserved it though, as far as Sasori was concerned. Deidara had been nothing but irritating the whole journey. In fact, he'd been deliberately goading him on to get a reaction from the puppeteer.

"Stop talking about her. You don't know anything so quit pretending that you do."

With that, Sasori marched forwards along the path and didn't look back or even wait for Deidara to keep up – not that the blonde man made any attempts to follow after him anymore. Deidara still clutched his nose tightly and protectively, looking lost and confused about what he should do with himself.

Should he still follow after Sasori? Should he just go back to the Akatsuki? He didn't know anymore.

He just didn't.

* * *

They had made it outside the inn. Hidan didn't know exactly where Kakuzu had gone, but he guessed that the freak couldn't be far from where they were. He wouldn't leave Hidan to watch over anyone; usually the Jashin worshipper killed captives if he was left with them.

He was no longer holding onto Sakura's wrist, since the girl had recently regained her senses and was fully alert once again. Hidan wanted to believe that they were in the clear, but he doubted it very much. Still, it wasn't as though he could ever be killed. Sakura on the other hand could be...

"Where do you suppose Kakuzu went?"

Hidan looked in every direction, but he couldn't detect his partner's chakra anywhere. "I haven't got a fucking clue." He saw her worried expression and quickly tried to correct it, "Let's not wait around for him to find us though, okay?"

She nodded and followed his lead towards the small cobbled path.

Sakura actually felt a little giddy as she tagged along beside Hidan. It was a little surprising for her to find that she could so easily make 'evil' Akatsuki members want to protect her. Perhaps he was just returning the favour from before, but that alone proved that she had gotten to Hidan on some level. Somewhere in all that 'evil' he had a sense of right and wrong. Kind of made Sakura wonder if there were any others in that group that had that sense.

She'd found it inside Sasori and even Deidara had something there.

With an elated smile on her face, Sakura started to drop her guard.

That was her first mistake.

The duo emerged from the cobbled path and back onto the main road, only to come face to face with Kakuzu. Over his shoulder was a corpse – the 'business' he had to care of. His face was stony and his weird green eyes glared coldly at them both.

"Hey Kakuzu! Just thought I'd take the girl for a nice little stroll. Didn't realise you'd be here to meet us." Hidan moved to be slightly in front of Sakura to shield her if Kakuzu tried anything. "And didn't Zetsu tell us not to do anything except the mission? What the fuck do you call that Kakuzu?" He motioned to the dead man hanging over his partner's shoulder.

"Zetsu's orders from Leader were for you to not do anything. Leader encourages my business because it funds the organisation. Your hobbies are time consuming and pointless. The only purpose they serve is to attract unnecessary attention." He dropped the dead man onto the floor by his feet, while at the same time slipping a kunai into his left hand. "And I find it hard to believe that you'd take someone for a walk Hidan."

Kakuzu hurled the kunai at Sakura's forehead – aiming to kill – and Sakura had a sudden deja vu of Orochimaru doing a similar thing back during her first attempt at the Chunin exams. Only this time there wasn't anyone to pull her to safety. Instead, there was a fairly large scythe blocking the path of the projectile weapon and knocking it harmlessly to the floor.

"Move Hidan."

"Make me bastard."

Kakuzu didn't even bother to attack again. Both Akatsuki knew it would be futile to attack one another. Hidan couldn't die and Kakuzu was nearly invincible. Instead, Kakuzu picked up the corpse and began walking west in the direction of the Sand village.

"Oi, Kakuzu! Where are you going bastard?"

The bounty hunter turned back around to look at his partner. "I have a delivery to make, then I'm coming back to finish the mission. You can go with that girl or kill her and follow me. Choose now."

Hidan was about to tell Kakuzu to 'fuck off', when he actually thought over what the choice involved. If he decided to protect Sakura and take her home, he'd be branded a traitor to the Akatsuki and hunted – like Sasori, Deidara and Orochimaru. On the other hand, he could off the pink-haired girl to his almighty God and then accompany Kakuzu to wherever he was heading, ensuring that he would always have some kind of security in life to kill people whenever he felt like it.

He almost chose the latter of the two – the most logical decision in his head because he didn't really care what happened to the girl – when his traitorous eyes looked at Sakura's fearful face. She honestly believed he'd kill her and she was terrified. Sakura was afraid of Hidan. She wasn't afraid of him before, but at that moment she truly was.

The Jashin worshipper couldn't have his 'angel' afraid of him! He still owed her after all and he'd miss so many opportunities to call her 'pinky' if he sacrificed her straight away. Give it time maybe...

"Fuck you Kakuzu! Me and pinky are going places, so you can take your corpse and piss off!"

The bounty hunter seemed to expect as much, so he just turned back to face west and continued with his journey.

Hidan felt a little confused at first, but when he looked at how happy Sakura was the confusion disappeared. "Don't worry pinky. Nothing's going to happen to you with me around."

She frowned at the nickname again, "Stop calling me that!"

"What, you mean 'pinky'?"

"Yes!"

"So I'm not your friend then?" He pretended to be upset and hurt by the news.

She groaned wearily and began walking east to the Leaf village. "Whatever, let's just go! I hope Sasori and Deidara can find the village without me..."

"I wouldn't worry about them pinky."

"Why shouldn't I?"

Hidan pointed to a point up ahead and sure enough, there was Deidara.

"DEIDARA!" Sakura charged for him and hugged him from behind. "I'm so glad you're okay! Where's Sasori?"

The blonde man was a little disturbed that Sakura had hugged him, but managed to shrug it off long enough to reply, "I dunno, yeah..."

* * *

Sasori was at a crossroads. Literally. There were three roads he could take. Forwards, left or right. To complete his problem, the sign was missing. He had no idea which route would take him to the Leaf village – and more than likely Sakura. He didn't want to make a guess, become terribly lost and then never see Sakura again. That would never do.

"I'm starting to see why we needed a guide. Only locals would know the way..."

Lots of pounding feet on the dirt ground from behind the puppet master brought him out of his musings. He looked over his shoulder and nearly fell over in shock. Running at top speed – and yelling his name even though he hadn't heard until now – was Sakura! A little ways behind the girl, also running, were Deidara and...Hidan? That didn't make sense to the red-haired ninja, but he was too focused on the girl heading towards him to care too much.

She flung herself into Sasori's arms and held him in a death grip, mumbling about being sorry or something like that – Sasori didn't care because she was there and that was all that mattered to him.

He hugged her back – hesitantly.

"Sakura...what happened?"

She didn't look up at him, simply spoke into his cloak, "It doesn't matter anymore. You're okay and that's all that matters to me."

He didn't understand why he wouldn't be okay. "Why wouldn't I be 'okay' Sakura?"

"Well I...said some things I didn't mean and then I found out that the other Akatsuki want you both dead..."

Sasori looked away from Sakura's pink head and looked curiously at Hidan who was standing a couple of feet away from them all. "Why are you here?"

"Just tagging along with pinky." He grinned and Sasori had a sudden feeling that there was a LOT more behind all this than anyone was telling him, but frankly he'd worry about it all later...when his head could think more logically.

Deidara decided he needed to give his input, "Don't worry, yeah. He's not here to kill any of us...which is just weird, yeah."

Sasori looked at his partner and actually felt guilty for how he had acted before. "Deidara, about before..."

The blonde waved his hand in the air and grinned. "Forget about it, yeah! We're partners aren't we?"

The puppeteer nodded his head, a small smile tugging at his lips. He looked down to Sakura once more, who was still clinging to him as though he would vanish.

"Shall we get going then Sakura?"

She loosened her grip and smiled at him. "Yeah."


	15. Broken

AN: Sorry it's been ages for an update. I have reasons, but you don't want to hear them I'm sure. Also, hope you can suss what the chapter's about from the title. Trust me, not a good thing.

Disclaimer: I do not own 'Naruto'. If I did, don't you think I'd be swimming in money and cackling like a maniac???

* * *

**A Broken Friendship**

**Chapter Fifteen: Broken**

"So which way is it, yeah?"

Sakura tapped her chin and then turned to the three men, "It's straight ahead...I think..."

All three males stared wide-eyed at her. Sakura was from the Leaf village, so she should know the way to her own home town. Yet, here she was, acting so unsure. It both disturbed and annoyed them all.

"How can you not know, yeah? Don't you LIVE there?!"

Sakura glared at the blonde and folded her arms tightly. "I said I 'think', not that I 'don't know'. There's a strong genjutsu in place that prevents any outsiders from finding the village, so I'm not even sure if we can get there even if I take you."

"That's just great, yeah!"

Neither Hidan nor Sasori bothered to add anything to Deidara's comments. He was loud enough for anyone at that moment that there was no point having a say in the conversation.

Eventually Sakura gave up trying to reason with Deidara's clear annoyance and tugged on Sasori's cold hand to get the puppeteer to walk with her. Her pull on his hand was so quick and fierce that Sasori nearly fell over at first, but quickly caught himself before he could look like an idiot.

Sakura could hear the blonde ranting behind them – most likely to Hidan – so she hastily tuned him out and put all of her focus on walking. Left. Right. Left. Right. Left. Ri-

Sasori's voice cut off her focus, "Sakura, is everything alright?"

She met his concerned eyes. "I'm fine, just tired. I want to get some sleep - in my bed for a change."

"When we get to your village, you can sleep all you want. I'll go meet my spy and you stay safe at home." He smiled, hoping to reassure her, but Sakura became tensed up even more from his words.

"You're not going without me."

Sasori looked into Sakura's worn face and wanted to firmly tell her 'no', but he couldn't. Truthfully, Sasori didn't want to ever leave Sakura's side – especially if she'd be left with some other 'friends'. Like Hidan.

The puppet master smiled softly at the pink-haired girl, held her hand more tightly and said, "If you want to come with me, I won't say no. I'd rather you be there anyway."

He hoped she would understand what he meant, but for some reason Sakura was oblivious to Sasori's feelings. It was as though she didn't think about him as much as she used to. Was that Hidan's fault?

"Thanks Sasori. If you said 'no' then I'd have to force you to take me...somehow..."

Sasori was only half-listening to what Sakura said; the rest of his mind was focused entirely on getting Deidara's attention without the girl knowing. After the tenth very obvious signal with his head and eyes, Deidara clued in to what his partner wanted.

The blonde snuck up behind Sakura and pulled her away by her arm – effectively separating the pair.

"What the heck's your problem Deidara?!" Inner Sakura was about ready to explode and the blonde could see the rage in Sakura's eyes all too clearly. Still, his partner wanted to have a 'chat' with Hidan alone and Deidara would definitely endure pain to make sure Sasori got his way. The puppet master could do way worse things than Sakura ever could after all.

"Calm down, yeah! Sasori just wants to talk with Hidan alone and he wants me to keep you company in his place." He grinned mischievously. "So what should we do, yeah? Want a hug?" He was still grinning like an idiot, until Sakura aimed a well-timed punch for his face – which he barely dodged.

"Stop joking about and let me go will you?" She felt a weird sensation on her arm and instinctively shivered out of fear. "What was that..?"

Deidara saw where her green eyes were looking – at his hand that still clutched her arm – and removed the appendage quickly. "Sorry about that, yeah. Sometimes my hands do crazy things," he laughed nervously and hid the hand behind his back, "There's nothing I can do about them, yeah."

Sakura gave him a very confused and murderous look. "What are you talking about?"

"Oh that's right, yeah! You never saw them before."

He showed her the palm of his hand and at first Sakura could only wonder if Deidara was totally off his rocker – until the palm started to twitch and a mouth opened in it.

She screamed.

LOUDLY.

Deidara tried to shut her up – using his only hand to cover her mouth – but that only made her screaming worse. He realised belatedly why she was so freaked out by his hand on her mouth when the punched him in the face and sent him flying into a tree. His hand had a mouth on it and she was freaked out by the mouth. Using the mouth-hand to cover HER mouth can't have been the wisest of decisions in his life.

"Ow! My nose! Why does everyone hit my nose, yeah?"

He clutched the now broken feature on his face and felt like dying right there and then. Anything would be better than walking around with a deformed face for eternity.

"You broke my nose, yeah!" He tried to sit up, but he felt a snap in his back and guessed that there was a broken bone somewhere on his body too. "And you broke my back, yeah!!!"

"I'm sorry, but you were being a freak! Who has mouths in their hands?!"

"I do, yeah! I was born with it bitch!"

"...What did you just call me?" Her eyebrow was twitching and Sakura kept clenching and unclenching one of her fists.

"Er..."

A loud 'crash' was all that could be heard coming from the pair as Sakura's fist once more connected with Deidara's face.

* * *

Sasori and Hidan were ahead of the quarrelsome duo and neither was paying any attention to the madness that had just ensued. Sasori wanted so desperately to find out what really went on between Hidan and Sakura, while the Jashin worshipper simply wanted to tick the puppeteer off.

The questioning had gone something like this:

"What do you want with Sakura?"

"I haven't decided yet. Maybe you should ask her what she wants with me?"

Cold glares from Sasori and cocky grins from Hidan.

In the end Sasori had deduced that Hidan was being an ass and needed to die. Or at least get tortured in some manner. Sasori liked to hurt those that didn't matter and Hidan fit the bill in his little world.

Before the Jashin worshipper knew what was happening, Sasori had lifted him into the air with his chakra strings, holding Hidan firmly in place. No matter what the grey-haired man tried, he couldn't break free and retaliate. He was trapped by Sasori and totally at the red-haired man's mercy – even if he couldn't die at all.

"Now what should I do with you?" A twisted smile graced Sasori's lips and he started to raise Hidan a little higher into the air. "I wonder if poison would work on you? Only one way to find out." With his free hand the puppeteer opened his cloak. The long chord with the blade on the end was visible and he used his chakra to drive the blade through Hidan's gut. "Did that hurt?"

"Of course it fucking hurt you twisted bastard! What the fuck's your problem?! Scared your girl might prefer me over a doll?"

The blade twisted painfully in Hidan's gut after that retort and the immortal actually feared that poison could affect him. After all, nobody had ever actually tried to use such a precise method of execution like Sasori was doing. Most people thought that a few stabs, impalings and beheadings would do the trick.

"Sakura is mine, not yours!" Sasori yanked the weapon out of Hidan's gut and watched as the poison dripped from the open wound. He was just about to attack again with a few cuts to the heart, but an awful sound filled his ears: Sakura crying.

The puppeteer snapped out of his jealous state temporarily as he glanced to his left and saw Sakura white-faced and weeping. He didn't let Hidan down, but he did lose all focus on the Jashin worshipper when Sakura slumped to the ground crying her eyes out and looking absolutely terrified of what she saw.

"S-Sakura..."

Sasori reached out his free hand to her rather hesitantly, but Sakura moved far away from him and stood closer to where Hidan's raised body was.

"Let him down Sasori."

The puppet master wanted to hurt Hidan more, but he complied with Sakura's wish and dropped the grey-haired man to the floor. He landed with a 'crack' and Sakura quickly darted to his side to try and heal him.

Hidan pushed her glowing hands away and stood up. "Don't bother pinky, I can't die so I'll heal on my own."

The glowing stopped and Sakura stood staring at the ground, completely miserable and utterly conflicted. Without looking up, she asked, "Why did you try to hurt Hidan, Sasori?"

"He's trying to take you away from me! That bastard will only kill you and everyone you know if you let him stay with you! Sakura, don't you see it? He's a monster!"

No matter how Sasori pleaded, Sakura refused to look at him. She turned to walk away, muttering to Hidan to go too. Sasori's cries couldn't reach her ears, or her heart.

"Sakura! Wait! I...I'm sorry! Don't...don't go! I..." she was barely a speck in the distance now. "...I love you..."

AN: Sorry for the uber lateness and shortness of this chapter... please review and we shall see just when I can update next. I've been sooo busy lately and I'll be moving to America in about 10 days time...so yeah...


	16. Torn

**_Authoress' Note: Apologies for the nearly two-week wait. My only excuse is that my mind's been sooo busy with getting read to move that nothing else entered my brain. Since watching 6 episodes of Shippuuden with Hidan in, my brain got back into Naruto mode again. So here is chapter 16 for you all! Please review and let me know what you think once you've read it. I absolutely adore hearing feedback on things I write._**

**_Disclaimer: I do not own 'Naruto' or anything associated with the manga or anime._**

* * *

**A Broken Friendship**

**Chapter Sixteen: Torn**

Sasori had screwed up. Somehow, he had lost his temper and lashed out without even thinking his actions through. Now Sakura had gone away with that maniac and she most likely never wished to see Sasori again.

He felt crippled inside. Broken, like an old toy thrown out after the owner was bored. His life held no meaning if Sakura hated him.

Sasori had finally become one of those pathetic losers he used to always mock. The ones that follow their hearts and wind up suffering as a result. He would have laughed, but the weight of his misery prevented even that simple act.

Sakura's face had been so fearful, so betrayed, yet all he had done was lash out against Hidan – a man who was in many ways worse than Sasori. Hidan didn't care about people – not really – but Sasori had finally learnt to care, learnt to love. The puppet master was fairly certain that if left alone for too long, the Jashinist would attempt to sacrifice Sakura to his God. It was the inevitable fate of those that travelled with a psychopath like Hidan.

"Well he won't get Sakura, even if I have to force her away from that bastard." Sasori vowed to the steadily creeping darkness of the night.

It was with some slow steps that the red-haired ex-Akatsuki proceeded in the direction that Sakura had taken, until he heard a large and deliberate groan of pain from behind him. He sighed and glanced over his shoulder to see Deidara's battered body haphazardly walking towards him, one foot dragging behind the blonde and most likely broken.

"Deidara, you really shouldn't have angered her."

The blonde came to a stop next to his partner – friend – and glared. "It's not my fault, yeah! She's got some serious rage, yeah..."

The puppeteer only sighed and began to walk once again, only this time he moved a little slower to accommodate his injured partner – friend. Sasori had to keep reminding himself that Deidara was no longer with him on orders, but because he chose to be. That made the blonde his friend, not partner in crime.

After a few minutes of very slow walking – or limping in Deidara's case – the blonde broke the silence, asking the question that he had wanted to voice since he joined back up with Sasori, "So...uh...where's Sakura, yeah?"

Sasori looked off to the side at the surrounding trees that were quickly darkening with nightfall. "She left."

"Oh."

Nothing more was said between the pair as they pressed onwards. It was in this silence that some pieces of Sasori's time with Sakura flashed through his mind. Things he hadn't dwelled upon in a long time.

"_Friends are pointless and worthless. I have no need for any."_

"_Come on, you must have someone who's your friend?"_

"_Thank you Sasori!"_

"_I'll take you with me, stupid girl. Why would I bother going through so much trouble just to let you die?"_

"_Here's your cloak Sasori. I thought you might want it back."_

"_You're right, you are not human…on the outside. However, I can tell you're still human, because you think and feel like one. Those are all you really need to justify being human or not."_

"_I didn't know you were a medic."_

"_There's a lot that you don't know about me…"_

"_Then…why don't you tell me?"_

"_I don't have fun, especially not with some stupid little girl from the Leaf village."_

"_I know that you think little of friendships and the concept of friends, but…would you like to be friends with me Sasori?"_

"_Don't you get tired of being alone?"_

That place, so long ago it seemed, was what began their strange friendship and Sasori's own feelings of love for Sakura. If he had never been sent on such a bizarre mission, then Sakura would most likely have wound up dead at the hands of those murderous ninja, and he would never have met her. He would not have received a second chance at life.

Sasori didn't want to go back to being alone and angry at the world. He wanted to be with Sakura and he'd be damned if he let some religious lunatic take her away from him.

* * *

Night hit the forest and the path was lit up with the bright moonlight, casting an eerie glow on a pair of figures that had stopped to rest against some trees. Sakura hadn't stopped crying since she'd seen Sasori try to hurt Hidan. She had been so upset that the words that Sasori had spoken to her – practically yelled to her as she left him – had been too inaudible to understand. Even now she couldn't work out what he had said. All she could figure out was that he had sounded hurt and confused. So unlike what she was used to.

Hidan for his part hadn't said a word. He simply sat next to the crying girl and kept alert for any danger. While he was extremely pissed off with Sasori for stabbing him, he was more concerned about Sakura's tears. Hidan would never admit this to anyone – not even Jashin himself – but he liked Sakura somewhat and seeing her upset was grating on his nerves. He couldn't sacrifice the bastard that had made her cry though, because Sasori was not even human anymore.

The Jashinist glanced at the sky and started to count the number of stars he could see, when he felt a faint tug on his arm. He looked down at Sakura's tear-stained face and wondered what she could want. Of course, being the not-so-subtle person that he was, Hidan had to ask, "What do you want now, pinky? I don't do the hugging shit."

She smiled at his words. "I don't need a hug. I just need to ask you something Hidan."

He grinned. "Well ask away pinky! Just don't ask me about all that sentimental crap."

Sakura's friendly smile fell from her tired face and she gave Hidan a serious look. "I have to know you'll be honest with me and not make a joke out of the answer."

Hidan placed a hand to the rosary around his neck. "I swear on Lord Jashin to answer as honestly as I possibly can, pinky." He removed his hand and crossed his arms over his chest. "Now what's the question?"

"Would you really kill everyone in the Leaf village...even me?"

Hidan looked calmly into Sakura's emerald eyes and answered truthfully, "I don't think I'd kill you, but I don't really give a fuck about anyone else, pinky."

The answer surprised Sakura and she moved a little away from Hidan until there was a fairly large gap between them. She really hadn't expected him to say that. It shouldn't shock her though, seeing as how he was an Akatsuki and carried an extremely hefty scythe around with him. Perhaps it was her memories of what Hidan was like for those few, short days in the Sand village that had made Sakura think that Hidan could be good.

Hidan noticed her conflicting expression and frowned. Was she really so stupid as to think he was a 'nice guy'? Apparently so.

"Oi pinky. Why the sad face? Don't be so surprised. Did you think I was some fucking hero for you? Just because I won't kill you doesn't mean I'll let everyone else off. God needs his sacrifices after all."

He thought that she'd understand his words. Hidan had made it quite clear that he wouldn't kill her, so why wasn't she happy?

"You should be glad that I won't kill you, pinky. All the other idiots that begged for their lives were offered to my Lord Jashin, but I've made you an exception. Why aren't you happy?"

She glared at the Jashinist. "How can I be happy when I know now that Sasori was right? He was only trying to protect me and now he probably thinks I hate him. With my luck he probably never wants to see me again. Hidan, why couldn't you be what you pretended to be before?" Sakura started to cry again and buried her face in her hands, completely broken by all the recent startling events.

It hurt her to know that she couldn't trust people anymore. It hurt her even more to know that she had probably destroyed whatever was between herself and Sasori – for she felt that it was more than a simple friendship now. If Sakura tried her hardest, she could almost swear that Sasori had tried to tell her he loved her, but that was probably her frail heart wanting to believe that there was some goodness left in her life.

She desperately wanted Naruto to be there. He was always a constant for her, making her laugh and smile without ever worrying about what lay beyond tomorrow. His was a goodness that Sakura needed right now. A person who was what he appeared to be. Not the pseudo kindness that Hidan had displayed to her.

Hidan didn't try to start any more conversations when he saw how utterly pointless it would be. For once, the grey-haired man had some tact. It wasn't exactly his fault that he needed to give sacrifices to his Lord Jashin; it was all a part of his religion after all. If by some chance he managed to find people that were considered 'bad' by Sakura's standards – although he was starting to believe that it would be impossible – then he had little doubt that she'd deny him the chance to sacrifice them instead of her friends and family. He could do that, he supposed, but eventually he'd run out of people.

Even now, Hidan knew that he had to give a sacrifice to his God, but the only person for miles was Sakura and he didn't want to end her life. He couldn't do that to his kind angel.

As if his thoughts had been heard, a small group of rogue ninja leapt from the trees on the other side of the path and landed with barely a 'thud' on the ground. Sakura jumped at the presence of the intruders, but otherwise she didn't appear to be prepared for a fight at all. More fun for Hidan.

The Jashinist stood up calmly and reached for his scythe, but the rogue ninja didn't give him the chance to grasp it firmly. Two of the six in the group hurled shuriken at Hidan, who stood his ground even as the projectile weapons embedded themselves into his chest.

Sakura seemed to have returned to her senses at last, for she stood up shakily and moved closer to Hidan's side to examine his wounds. "Hidan, are you okay?"

"Just fine, pinky. They stung like a bitch, but I won't die. Now stay here while I kill these bastards, alright?" He gave her a look that clearly said 'I'll protect you' and then charged into the fray swinging his scythe in a huge circle and cutting each of the six rogue ninja enough to draw some blood from them.

Sakura watched in morbid fascination as Hidan pulled out a shuriken and let his own blood drop to the floor. He moved his feet to draw a strange symbol on the ground – the same one that was on his rosary Sakura noted. When the triangle in the circle was finished Hidan laughed maniacally and the raised his three-bladed scythe to his mouth. He licked off each of the rogue ninja's blood and swallowed the red liquid.

Before Sakura's amazed and fearful eyes, Hidan changed slightly. His skin became pitch black and there were strange white markings on parts of his now black skin, making him appear to be like a skeleton. She was so surprised by this that she didn't catch his words, but she did manage to hear the absolute glee in his voice as he declared that he was going to kill each of the ninja before him.

Hidan took from his Akatsuki cloak a long pole which extended and became almost spear-like. He raised it and then impaled his heart with the weapon. Sakura was too shocked to even scream. Her eyes went wide as saucers and she watched in horror as Hidan's body fell to the floor and his blood trickled from the wound. What she didn't expect was for all the rogue ninja to suddenly cry out in pain and collapse too.

"W-what..?"

Before Sakura could even comprehend why those men had fallen and why Hidan had killed himself, said Jashinist suddenly started to pick himself up and remove the sharp weapon from his chest, laughing insanely as he did so.

Sakura fainted.

That was starting to become a bad habit for the pink-haired girl.


	17. Pieces

Authoress' Note: Uber apologies to EVERYONE that has been patiently waiting for an update. I had no computer access for a month, and then I had all the stress of being in a completely new country to contend with. America is really backwards compared to England.. but I still loves it here! It feels cleaner for some reason and much more pleasant.

Anywho, this chapter isn't as long as my other ones, because I just got rid of the godforsaken block. I should be able to update every 2-3 days depending on my schedule and whether this is still as well received as the previous chapters were. The plot should get back in full swing next chapter - this one is more a filler, sorry - and there'll be stuff with Tsunade, Naruto, Kakashi, Yamato and SAI!!! *cheers*.

Thank you to everyone who takes the time to read and review this story and I hope you will continue to bear with me should such a calamity as my late updating happen again.

Disclaimer: I do not own 'Naruto' or anything associated with the manga or anime. If I did, I would not mindlessly destroy decent and interesting characters just because I have the power to.

* * *

**A Broken Friendship**

**Chapter Seventeen: Pieces**

Deidara couldn't remember the last time he had been in so much physical anguish. His arm had been bad enough – he could deal with that pain – but to have repeated assaults on his nose and then extra damage on his back and foot was just too much. He needed a serious break and rest, but so far Sasori was having none of it. The red-haired ninja insisted on ploughing onwards and he wouldn't tell Deidara why he was so determined either.

The blonde simply assumed that Sasori had done something stupid and screwed things up, again, so he was now intent to correct his mistakes. What other reason would there be for the constant pace at which they both now travelled?

Satisfied with his conclusion, but not yet satisfied with the current arrangement, Deidara stopped walking and dropped to the floor in exhaustion.

"I can't go any further, yeah. Let's just rest for the night here, Sasori. Sakura's not exactly going to leave you behind. I'm sure she'll realise you were just being...you and whatever screw up you made will be forgiven by morning, yeah. Giving plenty of time for someone with say...a broken foot to rest..."

Sasori gave the blonde a glare and carried on walking, not even bothering to respond to Deidara.

"Hey, Sasori! Wait up, yeah! She's not really in any danger, yeah! She's got that idiot Hidan with her after all. He doesn't want Sakura dead either you know..." Deidara trailed off when he still failed to get a response from his friend.

"Sasori! I can't walk anymore with a broken foot, yeah! So stop already!" Deidara hollered after his friend, who slowed his pace at last and lowered his head in deep thought. Honestly, the blonde man would have blasted his puppet partner out of sheer frustration, but Deidara couldn't because that would still leave him with injuries in the middle of a random forest.

After a couple of minutes Sasori turned back around and stopped a foot in front of Deidara. With his right hand raised he attached chakra strings to each of the blonde's limbs and lifted the bomb expert carefully above the ground – completely ignoring Deidara's loud protests.

"Deidara, we don't have time to stop and rest. Sakura is in very real danger – even if you say that she isn't – so we have to keep going."

Sasori moved at a much faster pace than before, now that he could carry Deidara along at his preferred speed.

Deidara really was worried for his friend. Sasori seemed to be on the edge of obsessed and dangerous. If he continued to freak out about every little thing that happened with Sakura, the blonde was convinced that Sasori could even become dangerous to the girl. After all, Sasori was not used to losing that which he found most precious. He was actually very possessive, in an almost creepy kind of way.

* * *

Sakura awoke to the smell of blood and death. Not surprising really, when she recalled just why she had fainted. It wasn't everyday that a person got back up after stabbing themselves in the heart. Now that Sakura thought about it, she really had been behaving very pathetically. Surely she wasn't so weak willed that she would faint at the smallest things?

"What's wrong with me?" she muttered.

She'd gone from being the strong-willed apprentice of Tsunade, to a weak-at-the-knees cry-baby. It was really starting to grate on Sakura's nerves that she couldn't control her emotions anymore. Perhaps she'd finally hit that point in one's life where every little thing could break a person and soon she'd end up in a mental ward with one of those white jackets and padded rooms. Briefly, Sakura wondered if those rooms were actually all that comfortable to sleep in at night, but her thoughts stopped when she noticed a pair of troubled purple eyes glancing at her from her left.

Hidan looked worried.

"Er… what is it Hidan? Is there something on my face?" Sakura made to check her reflection in one of her kunai knives, but stopped when she realised that the man sitting only a few feet from her was the very reason that she had been so disturbed earlier – and why there were now a handful of dead rogue ninja littering the path around them. "Hidan…how did you…what did you...?" She couldn't find the right question for what she was thinking – and feeling.

"It's my ritual that I perform when I sacrifice people to Lord Jashin. All I need is their blood, which I got easily enough, the stupid bastards." He grinned at Sakura, thinking that she'd be pleased with his actions. Far from it.

"HOW COULD YOU DO THAT TO THOSE PEOPLE?! AND WITH ME AROUND TO SEE IT TOO!?"

Hidan's grin died on his face and he frowned, clearly confused about her anger. "I did it to protect you, pinky."

His complete obliviousness in his face and voice made Sakura's anger fade slightly. He was after all, only trying to protect Sakura until she got home. He had promised to do that and she was biting his head off when he'd done all he knew how to do to keep her safe from harm. She couldn't be mad at him. Nor could she stay mad at…Sasori…

"Thank you Hidan." She smiled and then stood up, dusting off her clothes. "Now let's get out of here before we start to reek like these guys." She held her nose and walked onwards to the Leaf village, which was only a couple of hours walking distance away.

Sakura hoped with all her heart that Sasori and Deidara would catch up before she got there though.

* * *

Deidara was starting to feel a little sick. Unlike his birds, Sasori's method of carrying Deidara around involved some jostling and occasional drops to the ground level. Sasori was more than likely so consumed with his need to get to Sakura that he wasn't concentrating like he should have been on his chakra control. Deidara had very nearly thrown up the remaining contents of his stomach from the rocky journey, but he managed to hold it off for a long time now.

Unfortunately, there was only so much dipping and diving that the blonde could take before he let it all out. So he did. On Sasori's head.

All at once, the puppeteer stopped dead in his tracks and dropped the blonde unceremoniously on the dirt ground of the path. He reached a pale hand up to his normally red locks and felt the gross goop that had covered nearly all of his hair. He let his hand fall back to his side and then turned slowly and carefully to face the crippled bomb expert. The death glare he directed at Deidara was by far the most frightening thing that he had ever witnessed – with the exception of Sakura's foul temper of course.

"Deidara…" Sasori hissed lowly and dangerously. "Why?"

"I couldn't help it, yeah! You weren't holding me securely enough and my gut didn't want to put up with any more crap today so…" Deidara trailed off when he noticed that Sasori had closed his eyes. "Er…Sasori?"

"Walk yourself to the Leaf village." The puppet master swivelled on his feet and stomped off in the direction that the others most likely were, giving Deidara the coldest shoulder that he'd ever felt.

"Ouch…Sasori must be maaaad, yeah."

* * *

"We should be there in an hour's time now Hidan. What will you do when we get there? Are you…are you going to stay or go?" Sakura asked tentatively.

Truthfully, Hidan didn't know what he'd do. He couldn't stay in that village, because he needed sacrifices for Jashin. Yet, a small part of him wanted to watch out for Sakura. That part wished to stay.

"I er…don't really know. I can stick around for a little while, if you want me to pinky. But I can't stay forever because I have places to go and people to sacrifice."

She only smiled half-heartedly at his attempt to be humorous. Really, Sakura had become a little more cautious around Hidan since she'd realised that he wasn't the white knight she needed. Sasori was that knight…

"Cheer up pinky! It's not like I'm going to walk out on you the moment you turn your back!"

She sighed, "It's not that Hidan, I just…miss Sasori, I guess. He still isn't here and if he doesn't hurry he won't be allowed past the gates. Without me there, the guards will think that he and Deidara are trying to attack the village. They won't get far."

Hidan looked up in thought, trying to work out a plan that would suit everyone's needs. Finally he came up with something, "How about we wait right here for them to show up?"

Sakura stopped and slapped her forehead when she realised that Hidan's idea was so obvious, she should have thought of it sooner. "That's a great idea Hidan! You're a genius!"

He looked shocked at this, "I am?"

* * *

"Deidara, look here! Hidan did that disgusting ritual of his not too long ago. They've been through here alright." The blonde huffed and puffed and wheezed to try and steady his aching lungs, joints and muscles. He was exhausted, in pain and very, very hungry. It was all well and good for Sasori to charge headlong wherever he wished, but Deidara was human after all – he needed to rest at least once a day.

"That's…great, yeah… We're…not…too…far…away…then." He said in between breaths.

"If we hurry we'll be able to catch up within the hour. I'll have to carry you though…" At the apprehensive look that had graced Deidara's features, Sasori added, "I won't let you get sick again, I promise."

The blonde nodded cautiously and Sasori applied the chakra strings once again to Deidara's body – being careful to make sure that he was actually concentrating on his friend's safety this time around.

They took off down the path, a little more higher in spirits since they didn't find a pink-haired corpse among those that had been offered to Hidan's god.

Sakura was still alive at least.

Sasori still had a chance to correct his errors and pick up the pieces.


	18. Secrets

**Authoress' Note**: I do so love reviews! Thank you for everyone that took the time to read the last chapter and for sticking with me throughout all of the story so far. Now this chapter might...alarm some people. It's not bad, it's just unexpected. Please review and let me know what you think at the end!

**Disclaimer**: I do not own 'Naruto' or anything associated with the anime or manga.

* * *

**A Broken Friendship**

**Chapter Eighteen: Secrets**

Morning was just beginning to grace the inhabitants of the forest with its presence, but for one girl this was not a fortunate occurrence. Sakura and Hidan had waited for nearly the allotted hour that they could afford to lose. If Sakura didn't hurry to her home village, people would start to worry and the Hokage would send someone to find their lost ninja – and kill the 'enemies'.

Sakura was fully convinced that Tsunade had it in her to do such a thing if drastic measures were needed. Dispatching ANBU would be drastic indeed to check up on someone if they were ever late for a deadline. Kakashi would suffer terribly.

Sakura almost laughed at the thought, but her worry and her jittering nerves prevented any happiness from coming out. How could she be happy, when one of the most important people in her life was somewhere else, possibly hating her?

_Stupid._

_Coward._

_Useless._

_Pathetic._

The words floated around in Sakura's unguarded mind as she fought to keep her heart at peace. It wasn't too long ago that Sakura had been known for those qualities. And they were very bad qualities indeed.

She felt useless that very moment moment, not being able to do anything to fix the problem at hand.

She felt stupid too, for ever thinking ill of Sasori's actions and abandoning him so hatefully.

She was a coward for running away so much, when really she should have been standing her ground and facing her demons.

Pathetic - that's what Sakura could label herself as right at that moment.

What kind of ninja flees from a potential problem?

What kind of ninja cries so much and can't even seem to summon the energy to fight off danger?

What kind of…friend would be so cruel?

One name came to the forefront of Sakura's mind: Sasuke Uchiha. He had done something similar to Sakura two years ago, when she had declared she loved him and he had simply left. Run away. Abandoned all who had cared about him.

Sakura had been so cruel to Sasori, jumping at any opportunity to hate or spite the puppeteer it seemed.

Just because he had kept secrets, it didn't mean that Sakura could treat him so coldly whenever something new came up.

Everyone needed secrets after all.

* * *

They were almost there. Sasori could feel it in his heart. It was funny how only a month ago he would never have used such an expression to justify his choices or his 'feelings'. So much had changed since his first meeting with Sakura. He'd gone from uncaring and cruel, to someone that felt love and compassion for another. It was…surprising. Very surprising.

"We're nearly there Deidara!" Sasori called to his blonde friend who was still being suspended in the air, "I know that she's close by!"

Deidara didn't dare open his mouth to reply to the red-head – he could feel bile rising forth in his throat once more – so he just weakly smiled down at Sasori. The artist couldn't wait to get there! He'd be able to rest and not have to think about puking up his guts all over his Master. That'd be very bad to make a habit out of.

They both reached the end of the path and turned a sharp corner –

'WHACK!'

Sasori collided with another object and fell hard on the floor, which in turn caused him to lose his focus on his chakra control. So Deidara plummeted painfully to the ground and landed with a crippling 'crunch'. All that came from the explosives maniac were a series of pained groans and moans.

Sasori blinked his stunned eyes and focused on the thing he had smashed into. Or rather, the person.

"S-Sakura..!"

The very girl mentioned hesitantly raised her head to look into Sasori's dark eyes, but she could barely hold his gaze before her guilt settled in and she dropped her emerald eyes to the floor once more.

"Sasori, about what I said…" she began nervously.

The puppeteer cut her off though, "I'm sorry for what I did Sakura. Can you forgive me?"

He sounded so incredibly guilt-ridden and sincere, that Sakura forced her eyes to rest on his sad ones, where she saw all of his fears clearly for once. Sasori was afraid of her answer, afraid that she'd hate him and afraid of being alone again. Sakura could see it and she knew then and there that this person was more precious to her than any other.

Sasori was even more precious to Sakura than Naruto, which was saying a lot.

A sudden thought struck Sakura, one that she hadn't really considered too deeply before. Maybe she…was in love…with Sasori?

No.

But it was close.

Very close.

She smiled, "There's nothing to forgive." With that, Sakura threw her arms around the puppet master and held him in an almost crushing hug, silently vowing to stop acting like the greatest idiot that ever lived – like Sasuke had.

A clearing of the throat was heard from slightly behind Sakura, and it was only then that she remembered that there wasn't enough time to be sitting around hugging Sasori. They all needed to at least enter the Leaf village in order to stop any kind of search party from starting up.

Reluctantly, Sakura released Sasori and stood up, a smile still present on her face. An apparently infectious smile, for Sasori also carried a small one on his own face. It was faint, but she could see it.

"We'd erm, better be going then. We have less than an hour to get to the village, so we can't stop anymore." Sakura was about to start running along the path, but then she heard Deidara's anguished groans. Turning back to the stone ninja, she blushed and then hastily healed his sore bones and broken foot. "Sorry about that Deidara."

The blonde tried to glare at her, but he couldn't be bothered to make the effort so he scowled instead. "Whatever. Just…don't hit me again, yeah."

"I won't."

With everyone ready to set off, the small group began to walk back along their route, but it wasn't long before they all stopped once again. This time, for a different reason entirely. Blocking the road that was only a stone's throw from the village gates were two cloaked figures.

One wore a strange, orange mask that covered all of his face except for one tiny hole, where it could be assumed was an eye. Messy tufts of dark hair stuck up from the top of this one's head. He also wore a plain black cloak – not a typical Akatsuki robe.

His partner, as it turned out, was Kakuzu. He looked no different from before, apart from the lack of a corpse over his shoulder.

Sakura almost froze in her place when she realized the dangerous situation that she had found herself in, but she managed to find her courage when she felt Sasori grab her hand and hold it securely. He wouldn't let her be harmed, and she in turn was going to protect him.

The one with the creepy mask spoke, "Kakuzu-sempai! Are these the ones Tobi has to beat?" His voice was almost innocent in nature, but he was clearly not an innocent. He gave Sakura the chills.

Kakuzu almost seemed to be fighting the urge to choke this masked man, but he managed a short, "Yes".

Sakura glanced to the others and noticed that they weren't really all that worried, which was good. If they weren't afraid or concerned by this new obstacle, then Sakura wouldn't be either.

She heard Sasori mutter a, "We don't have time for this" and then he motioned with his head towards Deidara, who surprised Sakura by throwing an already prepared explosive clay bird at the enemies.

The bird grew in size so that it now had enough size to completely envelope both of the Akatsuki, before it started to shine. The explosion detonated just as it made contact with Kakuzu and the masked man and dirt and debris flew everywhere.

But when it cleared, there were no bodies. No traces that either of the two men had been caught in the blast.

"Where..?" Sakura didn't get to finish her question before a hand shot out from nowhere and grabbed her throat, cutting off her air supply and slowly choking her.

Another hand seized Deidara by his neck and smashed him to the ground, winding him.

Kakuzu had extended his arms somehow, with strange threads attached to them that were literally a part of the bounty hunter's body.

Sakura tried to pry his fingers loose, but she couldn't seem to focus as well as she normally did. The lack of oxygen going to her brain was beginning to make the Leaf ninja see dots in front of her eyes.

_Focus!_

She just had to put enough chakra into her grip to remove the Akatsuki's cold, clammy hand. Then she'd be free!

She felt the energy flow into her hands and with a force unheard of in a girl her age, Sakura bent Kakuzu's fingers back until they snapped and then threw the hand as far as it would go, causing the bounty hunter to lose his balance temporarily from where he stood near a tree – hiding.

The pink-haired girl gasped for breath and tried to steady her racing pulse. She needed to get back up if she were going to stop this monster.

Where were Sasori and Hidan? Sakura didn't know. Nor did she know where that orange-masked man had gone either. It appeared that they'd been separated – Deidara and Sakura were left with Kakuzu, while Hidan and Sasori were apparently with that other guy.

A sudden choking sound reminded Sakura that the blonde had also been grabbed by one of Kakuzu's hands, "Deidara..!"

She turned to find him face down on the ground, one hand trying desperately to remove Kakuzu's vice-like grip from his throat.

Without thinking twice, Sakura charged at Kakuzu and swung a chakra-infused fist at his face, but he dodged her blow. Just as Sakura expected, the Akatsuki released Deidara's neck in order to use his own hands against her.

His attacks held almost as much force behind them as Tsunade's had done in Sakura's training, but he was faster than the Hokage had ever been. This was a problem that Sakura wouldn't be able to get around. Her basic taijutsu skills focused more on evasion than anything else, yet she could barely avoid the bounty hunter's blows – most of them were connecting painfully with her body.

On top of that, she couldn't even scratch Kakuzu. His speed was otherworldly and nothing Sakura tried seemed to work. At least she had managed to free Deidara. Maybe he could come up with something while she continued to fend off the blows that were quickly wearing her down.

* * *

Sasori twitched his left finger slightly, causing the puppet he was using – the 3rd Kazekage – to release a set of hidden arms that were aimed at the masked man, but for some reason his attack missed once again.

It seemed that nothing Sasori or Hidan tried would work on this freak. At one point, Hidan had attempt to slice the man's head off, but the Jashinist's scythe 'ghosted' through the masked man's neck. It was…weird.

"Why the fuck can't we hit this guy Sasori?!" Hidan angrily swung his scythe at their opponent, but once again it hit nothing but air. "For fuck's sake! Just bleed already!"

Sasori couldn't agree more, but it was as though their enemy was not really there. On top of that, he hadn't said a word since they'd been separated from the others. Sasori knew he had met him somewhere before, but with all the different subordinates that each member had, it was impossible for him to recall a name to the man. Was he one of Zetsu's perhaps?

"Tobi is a good boy…If Tobi can kill one of you, Tobi will be a true Akatsuki…"

His voice sent shivers through Sasori's soul, something that was very difficult to achieve. And he kept saying 'Tobi'. Was that his name?

"Oi, Sasori! This guy's more fucking retarded than I am!" Hidan declared, clearly relieved that he was no longer the moron of the group. Not that Hidan was truly a part of the Akatsuki anymore though.

"Hmm, so it would seem." Sasori was just about to unleash his puppet's true power, when Tobi disappeared and reappeared right in front of him, holding a small explosive.

"Heheheeeee, boom!"

* * *

A loud explosion came from somewhere in the trees to Sakura's right and she nearly received a heavy punch to the jaw when horrible images of Sasori in pieces caused her to lose her concentration.

The pink-haired girl knew that Deidara hadn't caused that explosion – he was standing nearby, working his clay into something they could use, hopefully. So if Deidara hadn't, then it had to have been that other Akatsuki. Hidan didn't own any bombs and blowing things up just wasn't Sasori's style.

So, Sasori was hurt somewhere and Sakura couldn't help him…

Honestly, she wasn't worried about Hidan. She now knew that he couldn't die, so she needn't fear for his safety. Sasori however…he was not immortal. He could die if someone knew how to end his life. And then there was his body. It was a puppet, so if it broke, he'd had nothing to use anymore.

A sudden white hot anger filled Sakura's heart and she directed her rage at the only thing she could – Kakuzu. Her anger fueled a newfound strength within her body, and Sakura swiftly kicked the bounty hunter into the ground, causing the ground to smash apart and burying the temporarily unconscious Kakuzu within its depths.

"Deidara! We have to help the others!"

He nodded and they darted into the trees to where the explosion had gone off mere moments before. It was easy enough to find the spot after all. Broken trees littered the ground and there was a distinctly man-made clearing ahead of them. There was also still a raging battle going, between Hidan and the masked man.

Where was Sasori?

Deidara went to help Hidan with his fight – which he was clearly going to lose as he couldn't hit his target – while Sakura scanned the area with her tear-filled eyes.

"S-Sasori?" She called out, hoping that the puppeteer was merely hiding nearby.

Her hopes were shattered when she saw a flutter of black material in a particularly deep hole. Slowly Sakura approached the hole and held her breath as she peered inside it. The tears held within her eyes poured forth when she saw what was in the hole.

Sasori's body was singed and cracked in places. His cloak was mostly destroyed and he wasn't moving at all. That's when Sakura noticed that the box where his heart would be was slightly damaged.

She couldn't help him! He wasn't like a normal person, so she had no medical technique to repair him. And she knew nothing about puppets either!

_Pathetic._

_Useless._

_Coward._

_Stupid._

She was all of those things and more.

Another 'BANG!' shook the forest around Sakura, but she barely noticed it. If she had, then she would have realized that this explosion was so loud, it actually drew the attention of other ninja. Ninja from the Leaf village.

A hand lightly touched Sakura's shoulder, but she didn't even acknowledge the person. Until he spoke, "Sakura, everything'll be okay now."

She looked up and had never been more happy to see that blue-eyed and welcoming face. "Naruto!" Sakura dove into his chest and clung to him as tears fell of their own accord down her face and onto his clothing.

* * *

Deidara could see that this Tobi person wasn't going to get hit anytime soon, so he'd tried to surround him with smaller explosive birds. The effect had been spectacular to watch – the blonde was very proud of his work – but it had failed to even touch Tobi!

Deidara reached into his bag for more clay, but grasped only air. He had nothing left to use now. And Tobi was just about finished with beating Hidan to a point where the Jashinist passed out. Tobi turned his orange mask to face Deidara and laughed. He was about to do his 'ghosting' trick on Deidara, when a strange tree-like structure appeared and smashed into Tobi.

The man went flying into the trees somewhere and didn't resurface. Deidara was never so happy to have random things happen as he was right then.

Three figures emerged from the surrounding foliage, one of whom Deidara had met previously.

"Hello again, Deidara." Kakashi Hatake said, with a small wave of his hand and a smile that was hidden, but showed with his visible eye. "You seemed to need some help."

He was never more thankful to see a Leaf ninja than at that moment.


	19. Epilogue: Fear

_**Disclaimer:**_ I do not own 'Naruto' or anything associated with the manga or anime. Purely for the enjoyment of me and the other rabid fans ^_^

_**AN:**_ Here be-eth the ever so short epilogue, written from Sakura's POV, in case you couldn't tell. ^_^

Thank you to everyone who stuck by this story, and it's predecessor, even when things seemed bad or just... weird. I know you'll want to kill me after you've read this EPILOGUE, but please, hear me out. There IS going to be a third and final story in this piece. I just hit a terrible block with how to get from this point... to what I plan to happen soon. So, it may take a few months, but please don't think that I'm a cruel, evil being! *gets on hands and knees, pleading*

* * *

**A Broken Friendship**

**Epilogue****: Fear**

Fear can be a powerful thing. It can make people run screaming, hide behind others or lash out aggressively. Nobody fully realises just how dangerous fear can be until they are gripped in it, completely at its mercy.

"_S-Sasori..?"_

**I** never realised it.

"_Sasori! Wake up!"_

"_Sakura...he's gone."_

My heart had been gripped with such a powerful emotion at that moment and I had known then what true fear was. To know, that no matter what I did, the one person I cared about would not be coming back.

I was frozen.

**Broken.**

Just like the friendship that had grown between Sasori and I.

"_He can't be gone Naruto! He can't be!"_

Yet he was.

And **nothing** would change that.

_**~ End ~

* * *

**_

_**AN**_: Yes, it's depressing and VERY short after the LONG wait. But it finally hit me with what to do. I really don't want to write too much of the actual canon plot with this, but I realise that it's necessary in places. Also, I REALLY didn't want to include Orochimaru, Kabuto or Sasugay, simply because I'd ruin my most favourite characters and I HATE the Uchiha _

So, there WILL be a 3rd installment and I'll leave it up to you guys to imagine what has happened until I write it ^_^

Please don't hate me! I know Sasori's like dead... and stuff... but he can come back! Don't forget Chiyo!

Reviews appreciated please ^_^


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